


darling, hold me in your arms (the way you did last night)

by ProbablyVoldemort



Category: The 100 (TV), The 100 Series - Kass Morgan
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Babies, Clarke and Murphy Can't Sing, Dehydration, Domestic Fluff, End of the World, F/M, Family Feels, Friends Spoilers, Graduation, Grey's Anatomy Spoilers, High School Musical References, Jealous Bellamy Blake, Lord of the Flies Spoilers, Madi is a little shit, Mamma Mia! References, Marijuana, Minor Character Death, Minor postpartum depression, Nightblood - Freeform, Pining, Post-Apocalypse, Season 5 AU, Sharing a Bed, Slow Burn, Starvation, Suicide mentions, Tequila, The Titanic Spoilers, They Hear the Radio, Unplanned Pregnancy, but they love her, cannibalism mention, jealous murphy, no actual suicide though
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-11
Updated: 2019-07-05
Packaged: 2019-07-10 23:03:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 128,311
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15959429
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ProbablyVoldemort/pseuds/ProbablyVoldemort
Summary: Clarke doesn't make it back in time to be on the rocket.  Neither does Murphy.





	1. save us from the fallout

**Author's Note:**

> So this is the first thing I've written for The 100 fandom, and it's hella angsty. It does get less angsty as time goes on, but you've got to wade through a bunch of that good angst before you get your reward.
> 
> Honestly, it's ridiculously late right now, so I'm not 100% sure that makes any sense haha.
> 
> Real talk. I've got this fic almost entirely planned out, which is good for me. The only problem arises in that I'm in uni right now, and uni takes up approximately 99.999% of my brainpower and time. So I will be writing this in my (small amounts of) spare time and/or when I just need a break of writing academic papers and need to write something fun. So updates will not be super consistent right now, unless I get a massive surge of productiveness and get like a month's worth of uni work out of the way. Which is hella unlikely to happen btw.
> 
> Anyway, back to the fic. Murphy's got a bit of a different ark backstory here because I needed it to work for some things I had planned for this fic. Nothing that really changes much, and I think it'll be easy to get the gist of what's going down in his past. This first chapter is kinda a rewrite of the season four finale to set us up for the fic, but shit gets real fast.
> 
> Please enjoy!

_And you know it's never simple, never easy_  
_Never a clean break, no one here to save me_  
_You're the only thing I know like the back of my hand_

* * *

  **1 BPF**

Murphy didn’t remember much of the days leading up to Praimfaya, but what he did remember came in vivid flashes.

Finding out that there were only a hundred spots for Arcadians in the bunker was a shock.  Realizing the chances of Emori getting a spot were basically nothing was not.  Abby had promised to do everything she could, but he knew that Emori taking a spot from someone from the arc wouldn’t go over well with the Arcadians.  And there was that other thing, the thing they hadn’t told anyone, that wouldn’t go over well with anyone.

So they were leaving.  He remembered that, remembered the look on Emori’s face as he told her about the lighthouse bunker, how it would keep them safe, even for a little while longer.

He remembered his conversation with Bellamy, how hard it was to keep his fury contained, to not punch him in his stupid face and break his stupid nose.

But when he dared to question what Murphy was really up to, like he wasn’t doing the exact same thing for Clarke, like it wasn’t his fault that Murphy was in this situation in the first place?  Honestly, Murphy deserved a reward for keeping as calm as he did.

“You _killed us_ when you opened that door,” he hissed stepping into Bellamy’s face.  “You know that, right?  Do you think _our people_ ”—He spat out the words.  They hadn’t been his people since they sent him down to Earth to die—“are gonna waste a spot on Emori?  On me?  We were safe until _you_ screwed us.”  He jabbed a finger at Bellamy’s chest, clenching his teeth.  “You want to know what we’re up to?  It’s called surviving.  It’s what we do.”  He turned to walk away, to follow Emori and Clarke.  “There’s a bunker on that island.  You’re our ride.  That’s it.”

And Bellamy?  He had the nerve to grab him, to turn him around and lay out all the ways his plan wasn’t going to work.  It wasn’t stocked.  They wouldn’t last five months, let alone five years.  He was going to fail.  Again.  Like Murphy didn’t already know.

“We probably won’t,” he snapped, jerking his arm away.  “But it’ll be long enough.”

“Long enough for what?” Bellamy asked, like he genuinely wanted to know.

But Murphy couldn’t tell him.  Not now.  Not even knowing how much it would destroy Bellamy knowing he was the one who caused it.  Murphy might have hated Bellamy, but even he wasn’t that petty.

“To survive the death wave,” he said instead, sending Bellamy a glare that he hoped masked the tears that were gathering in his eyes.  Johnathan Alexander Murphy did not cry.  Not now, not ever.  “We can’t all be essential personnel or have a sister who’s queen of the Grounders.”  He turned away.  “Come on, before they leave without us.”

The next thing he remembers is his conversation with Emori in the back of the truck, right before everything went to shit.

“Hey,” he said, bumping her with his knee.  “You good?”

Emori shrugged, leaning more of her weight against him.  “It felt good to be safe,” she admitted, glancing away like that was something she should be ashamed of.  “I’ve never felt that way before.  Like I had a home.”

“Hey,” he said, grabbing her hand and tugging it to his lips.  They hit the barrier of his helmet before they made it that far, so he redirected them to his heart.  “Your home is with me, okay?”

Emori nodded, but she was still looking away, not at him, and he couldn’t think of anything to say to make her feel better.

Yet another thing he was failing at.  He failed when he didn’t notice the signs of his mother’s cancer until it was too late for her allotted amount of medicine to save her.  He failed when he didn’t realize his father was planning to steal medicine, so he couldn’t tell him the right thing to steal.  He could have prevented him stealing a bunch of fucking flu shots instead of anything that could have saved her.  He could have prevented his father from being floated for nothing, could have helped his mother survive, but he didn’t.

He failed.

He failed out of medical school, too, when he decided to set Jaha’s quarters on fire for killing both his parents.  He even failed at being arrested for the coolest reason when Clarke was arrested for fucking treason a few months later.

He failed at the dropship, more times than he could count, and when he couldn’t stop Finn from shooting up that village.  He failed, over and over again he failed.  If they still had dictionaries, his picture would be there, right next to the word.  Failure.

Emori was the one thing he thought he hadn’t fucked up, but now they were going to die in the bunker where he’d almost killed himself what seemed like forever ago, so, really, he’d failed her too.

Before he could contemplate his further failures, Bellamy’s superb driving skills crashed them into something.

“What the hell,” Emori said, staring straight out as whatever they’d hit flew around the side of the truck, landing just behind them.  “Is that a person?”

“Are you okay?” he asked, and Emori nodded, and that was where it got fuzzy again.

Bellamy told them to stay in the truck.  Someone attacked, and more ran out from the bushes.  He remembers pushing her behind him, jumping out at them.  He remembers being thrown to the ground, and then they had her.

They had Emori, and he couldn’t do anything because they had him too.

She called his name, and it was like time slowed down.  The Grounder had her pinned, and he fought against the one that had him, but he wasn’t strong enough, he couldn’t do it.  He lay there, struggling, screaming for her as she screamed for him.  He fought as her screams turned to whimpers, as the Grounder’s hands squeezed tighter and tighter around her neck.  He struggled harder as her struggles stopped, when he stopped breathing with her.

It wasn’t until an arrow pierced the skull of the Grounder that had her that he was able to escape his own, ignoring the fight, ignoring everything but her.

“Emori,” he called, dropping down beside her, eyes scanning her body and resting on the tear across the neck of her suit.  “Emori, please.  Please just open your eyes.”

She didn’t, and he slipped his hand into her suit, feeling for a pulse.

“Emori, please,” he repeated, his voice breaking as he started chest compressions, one of the first things he’d been taught well before he’d even been chosen to train as a doctor.  “Wake up.  You need to wake up.  You have to.  Please, Emori.  _Please._ ”

He pounded on her chest, his own heaving in silent sobs, drowned out by his pleas.

*********

Clarke was breathing heavily by the time the last of the Grounders was dead, by the time they could take in that it was Echo who had joined them, who had saved their lives.

_“Come on.  Please, Emori.  Please breathe.  Just one breath.”_

Her eyes widened as the broken words hit her ears, and she spun around.  Her eyes found Murphy, hunched over Emori, shoulders shaking as his arms moved in compressions, and her heart stopped.

She ran the few feet between them, dropping down on the opposite side Emori and pushing his hands away.

“Murphy,” she said as he fought her, and his eyes snapped up to hers.  He looked so lost, so desperate, but she forced herself to keep eye contact.  “I’m helping.  Two minutes each, remember?”  He nodded, reaching up to swipe at his eyes and hitting his helmet.

She pumped her arms, counting in her head as her eyes dropped to Emori’s face.  “How long has she been out?” she asked, but Murphy didn’t say anything.  She glanced back up briefly, looking away again at the sight of the tears streaming down his face.  He was mumbling to himself, to Emori, clutching her hand like it was the only thing keeping him there.

“Murphy,” she called, and felt his attention shift to her.  “Check her pulse.”

He shifted around her, his hands moving into a tear at Emori’s neck that she hadn’t noticed.

“Come on,” he whispered, and Clarke took that as a no, continuing with her compressions.  “You have to wake up.”

Clarke stared down at Emori, sweat running down her back.  She should be doing breathing, but that meant taking off Emori’s helmet and her own.  She glanced back at Murphy, who was already falling apart, and thought screw it.

“Take over,” she said, and Murphy jerked violently before moving over, and they slid their hands, Murphy taking over the compressions.

Clarke gulped, taking a deep breath, and leaned down to unclip Emori’s helmet.

“What are you doing?” Murphy’s hands faltered for a moment, and she met his wide eyes.

“It’s not doing anything,” she pointed out, easing the helmet off Emori’s head.  “I need to breathe for her.”

Murphy all but froze, his arms the only part of him that moved, continuing up and down and up and down.

“Take over,” he insisted, pleading with her.  “Let me do it, Clarke.”

Clarke shook her head, forcing her hands to remain steady as they found the clasp at her neck.

“Clarke, don’t,” Murphy pleaded, but it was no use.  The only way he would have been able to stop her would be to take off his own helmet before she could, and Clarke knew there was no way he’d chance stopping compressions to do so.

She took a deep breath and opened the clasp, slowly easing the helmet off her head.

“I’ll be fine,” she promised, staring resolutely into Murphy’s eyes.  “I’ve got nightblood.”

“So do I,” Murphy pointed out, his protests weakening as she repositioned Emori’s airway.  “It’s untested, Clarke.  You don’t know what will happen.”

“I’ll be fine,” she said again, and leaned down to cover Emori’s lips with her own.

*********

Bellamy’s heart stopped the moment he realized Clarke had taken off her helmet.

He’d watched in shock as she’d sprinted over to Murphy and taken over compressions on Emori.  How had he missed it?  How had none of them seen Emori go down until it was too late?

He wasn’t a doctor.  He had no idea how bad it was.  There was nothing he could do to help, so he’d turned to take in Echo.

She’s saved them, riding in on a horse and shooting down the Grounders that were attacking them, and, while Bellamy definitely did not believe that she’d done it purely out of the kindness of her heart—everything had an ulterior motive with Echo, he’d learned—she’d still saved them.  The least they could do was offer her their spare suit.

He’d radioed Monty and Harper, got them to come pick them up, and then left Echo to finish putting on the suit on by herself.

And that was when he saw Clarke, or, more specifically, the back of her head as she leaned over Emori’s face.

The back of her bare head.

“What the hell are you doing?” he yelled, trying to figure out what could possibly have made Clarke take her fucking helmet off.

“Mouth to mouth,” Clarke told him as she sat up.  She spoke calmly, as if she wasn’t exposing herself to absurd amounts of radiation.

“Clarke,” he said, trying to be even a fraction as calm as she was.  “Put your helmet back on.  Please.”

“I can’t.”  She didn’t look at him, focusing instead on Murphy.  He must have said something, because her hands quickly replaced his on Emori’s chest.  “She’s not breathing, Bellamy.”

He wanted to plead with her, to beg, to shove her helmet on her head himself and pull her into the rover and never let her go again.

But he couldn’t.  He couldn’t make himself do any of that, not with the potential consequences being what they were.

So he just stood there, useless and helpless and trying not to be hopeless.

*********

Clarke was having trouble breathing.  She didn’t know if it was the effort of doing compressions for however long they’d been going on for, or if it was the radiation, or some combination of the two, but the fact was still there.

Her arms burned.  Her whole body ached, but she still took over again when Murphy gave the call.

_One and two and three and four and..._

Murphy wasn’t looking any better, not that Clarke really had the energy to study him too closely.  He seemed to be on the verge of both collapse and breakdown, his hands caressing Emori’s face, what little breath he could get being put towards pleading with her.

Bellamy had offered to step in on compressions at one point, but Murphy had snapped at him, claiming that since he didn’t know what he was doing, he could make things worse.

Clarke didn’t bother to argue, couldn’t meet Bellamy’s burning gaze.  She knew Murphy was wrong, that having another person could only make things easier on the two of them, but there wasn’t any point.

She’d known Emori wasn’t coming back long before then.

She didn’t know why she was still doing compressions, still trying to restart her heart.  Maybe it was that she didn’t know what she’d do if she lost another one of her people, one she could theoretically save.  Maybe she didn’t want Murphy to lose someone else, one of the only people he really, truly cared about.  Maybe she was imagining herself in Murphy’s place, Bellamy in Emori’s, and knew that Murphy would do everything he could to help.  Maybe it was that she’d never seen Murphy so desperate, so close to breaking.

Whatever the reason, she continued, prolonging the inevitable and hoping beyond hope for a miracle.

*********

 Murphy knew it was bad.  He wasn’t an idiot.  He had been training to be a doctor.  He was smart.

So he knew it was bad, deep down.  He knew that the chances of Emori waking up slimmed further and further every time they paused compressions for Clarke to breathe for her.

He knew it, but he refused to accept it.

He pleaded, he begged, he promised her the world and more if she would just take a breath, open her eyes, _anything_.

He registered, vaguely, in the small part of his brain that wasn’t focused on her, Bellamy’s voice.

_“It’s been over an hour.”_

_“I know.”_

_“Clarke—”_

_“Shut.  Up.”_

He didn’t register much more, taking over compressions from Clarke again.  The tears flowed freely down his face as he moved up and down.  His pleas were silent, his body incapable of taking in enough air for him to waste on words when keeping himself from passing out was more important.

He paused.  Clarke breathed, checked her pulse.  He started again.

Again and again, over and over, until he reached the two minute mark.

Clarke took over, and he pressed his forehead against Emori’s, the helmet blocking him from any real contact.

He shouldn’t have been surprised when Clarke collapsed, her arms just giving out underneath her.  Bellamy rushed over, pulling her up and pressing an oxygen mask to her face.

Murphy knew his body was protesting when he pulled himself up to continue compressions, but he didn’t feel it.  He didn’t feel anything, nothing but the blind desperation that was being eaten away by everything he didn’t want to face.

He didn’t know how much longer it was before his own arms gave out, before he collapsed against her, his face in her neck, sobs wracking his body.

“Come on,” he whispered, the loudest he could get as he was now, the words raw and broken.  “Please, Emori.  Wake up.  You have to wake up.  For me, okay?  Open your eyes for me.  Please.”

The sobs overtook his words quickly, and all he could do was cling to her, Emori, the woman he loved more than anything else in the entire universe.

He knew.  He did, he really did, but he refused to believe it.  He couldn’t believe it, because believing it would make it real, and it wasn’t allowed to be real.  There was still a chance.  There had to be.

How long he lay there, he didn’t know, but he startled when someone’s hand touched his shoulder.

“Murphy,” Clarke’s voice was soft, her eyes shining with tears through her helmet as he glanced up at her.  “Murphy, Monty and Harper are here with the other rover.  We have to go.”

His hand gripped Emori’s suit tighter, and he shook his head.  “I can’t.”

Clarke stroked his shoulder.  “She’s gone,” she told him, as if he didn’t know.  He squeezed his eyes shut.  “She’s not going to wake up.”

He knew that.  He knew it, but he wished it wasn’t true.

He pulled away from Clarke, leaning over Emori and stroking her cheek, her lifeless eyes staring blankly up at him.

“I can’t just leave her.”  His voice was a broken whisper, hoarse from his sobs.  “Not like this.”

Clarke was silent, and Murphy busied himself with closing Emori’s eyes.  It wasn’t her in there, not anymore, and he couldn’t take her staring through him like he wasn’t even there.

It wasn’t until Clarke spoke that he realized she wasn’t beside him anymore.

_“How long would it take to light a funeral pire?”_

_“Clarke—”_

_“How long, Monty?”_

_“Not long.  Everything’s catching on fire already anyway.”_

_“Good.”_

Clarke was back then, her hand closing over his.  “We’re going to give her a Grounder send off,” she told him.  “She deserves it.”

He nodded, unable to say anything.  He felt drained, like his body was ready to fall asleep and never wake up again.

Someone helped him stand, and he managed it for a while, until Monty held out a burning stick for him to take.  He shook his head, sinking down to his knees once more.

“I can’t,” he whispered, wringing his hands together.  “I can’t.”

Someone did it for him, touching the stick to Emori.  The flames licked at her suit for a few moments before they caught.  It killed him to watch the fire engulf her, but he couldn’t look away.  He couldn’t do anything but stare as the others added more flaming branches, as the love of his life was eaten away.

“Yu gonplei ste odon,” someone, probably Echo, said, but Murphy barely heard her.

 _I love you_ , he thought, the lump in his throat too large for him to actually articulate the words.  _I love you so much._

“In peace may you leave this shore,” Harper started, her voice breaking over the words as it cut through the crackle of the flames.  “In love may you find the next.”

“Safe passage on your travels,” Monty continued.  “Until our final journey to the ground.  May we meet again.”

“May we meet again,” the others echoed.

 _May we meet again,_ Murphy mouthed, his fingers digging into the dirt.

He knelt there, staring unblinking as the flames began to overtake her face.  The others were talking quietly around him, but he paid them no mind.

Emori was gone.  Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, however the fuck that saying went, she was gone.  She was dead, and she was never coming back, and he couldn’t do anything to stop it.

“Murphy.”  It was Clarke again, her voice cutting through to him.  He looked up at her, blinking in the sudden darkness that came after staring into the flames.  “We have to go.  We can’t wait any longer.”

He looked back at Emori.  He couldn’t leave her, didn’t want to leave her alone, even now, but he let whoever was tugging at his arms pull him up and lead him away.

He’d run out of tears.  He’d run out of emotions.  He was just a shell that they loaded into the back of the rover, a shell that stared out the back window as the flames of his love grew higher and higher into the sky as they drove away.

 

**9 hours BPF**

Tensions were high by the time they made it to Becca’s lab.  Murphy had come out of his shock only once, to scream at Bellamy and Echo, blaming them for Emori’s death.  Clarke wasn’t sure how Echo took it, but Bellamy’s fingers turned white from how tightly he gripped the steering wheel.

Clarke herself wasn’t feeling all that great.  She was cold and clammy, sweat dripping down her back caused most likely by the fever she no doubt had.  She’d coughed up blood a few times, the drops staining the window of her helmet.

It’d been a stupid decision to take her helmet off, she knew, but she wasn’t going to let herself regret it.  Any chance at saving Emori had been better than none, even if she’d been gone long before Clarke started the first set of respirations.

Bellamy had chastised her for it, quietly, as they drove, but he quickly shut up when she pointed out that Murphy would’ve done the same for her if it had been him on the ground.

They hashed out a new plan, too, while they drove, one that would put them back in space for the next five years rather than under the ground.

Monty and Bellamy told Raven when they arrived, Clarke’s chest too tight to speak as she tried to hold off another bought of coughs.  She watched Murphy instead, as he wandered aimlessly into the labs and stood near a corner, staring at some random piece of machinery as if it held all the answers.  He hadn’t even bothered to take off his helmet.

Raven was pointing out all the flaws in their plan, the ones they already knew were there and the ones they hadn’t thought of.

“We need you to get us off the ground before the death wave hits,” Bellamy pointed out.  When it came down to it, that was all that really mattered.  If Raven thought it was impossible, they were all dead.  “Can you do it?”

“I say that death wave can kiss my ass,” Raven said, and Clarke let out a sigh of relief.

Of course, that also meant releasing what control she had on her breathing, and the coughing started, blood splattering across the floor.

When she finally stopped, Bellamy’s arms were wrapped around her, and the others were staring.

“What are you doing?” she asked, raising an arm to wipe the blood off her mouth.  “We’re going back to the Ark, aren’t we?  I think that means there’s stuff we need to do first.”

 

**8 hours BPF**

The radio cut out in the middle of his conversation with Octavia.  It almost killed him that that was most likely the last time he’d hear from her for the next five years, unless they could get the radios working on the Ark.  He doubted that it’d be anyone’s top priority, but maybe eventually, after they got food and water and oxygen under control.

He saw Clarke before she saw him, making her way on the other side of the glass wall, and his heart sunk at the thought of having to tell her she couldn’t speak to her mom.

He watched her face fall as he told her as much.  He closed the distance between them when she started crying, wrapping her up in his arms as they both let themselves break, just for a moment.

It couldn’t last too long, though, because they had so much to do if they even wanted a chance at survival.

He pressed a kiss to the side of her head, and Clarke sighed.

“Bellamy,” she said, pulling back just enough to look at him.

He knew what she was going to say, and raised one hand to brush the hair off her clammy face.

“I’m still holding out hope for that nightblood solution,” he told her, because he couldn’t imagine a world that she wasn’t in. 

He listened as she told him it wasn’t going to work, that her mother had had a vision of her dying, that he was going to be alone, and he shook his head.  He couldn’t hear that, wouldn’t hear it, because she couldn’t die.  He couldn’t lose Clarke.  Not her.  Not now, and not ever.

“Clarke,” he said, stopping her words, his hand still cupping her cheek.

“If something happens to me, Bellamy,” she started, but he interrupted her again.

“Nothing is happening to you,” he insisted, his voice catching on the lump in his throat.  “Okay?”

Clarke’s eyebrows drew together, her eyes shining with tears.  “But—”

“No.”  He shook his head again.  “When we were safe, remember?  That was your rule, not mine.”

She looked like she was going to protest, her eyes searching his face, so he did the one thing he knew would make her forget that she was going to say the one thing he knew would mean she’d given up.

Her lips tasted the same way they had that night, although a bit saltier from the tears they’d both been shedding.  She responded immediately, her hands bunching up his suit as she tried to tug him closer.

It was over all too soon, someone yelling at them to come downstairs breaking them apart.

Bellamy kept his eyes squeezed tight, pressing their foreheads together for a short moment, before they had to step back into reality and rejoin their friends.

 

**1.5 hours BPF**

The death wave was coming faster than they’d thought it would.  Twenty minutes ago and Raven had estimated them having eight hours.  Now, they had an hour and a half, if that.

That was about all that Murphy had taken in from the discussion.  There was more said, more about how impossible this whole situation was, and he had offered a few sarcastic comments.  Normally, they’d have been met by rebuffs, but today they were mostly met with silence and pitying looks.

He was almost happy when someone had suggested he lead Monty to the lighthouse to get the oxygenator.  Not happy, exactly, because he didn’t think he’d ever be happy again.  Relieved was probably a better word.  Anything to keep him from just standing around here with nothing to do but think.

Of course, it was easier said than done, because Murphy was by definition an asshole, and had currently deemed himself the rights to up his asshole-ish-ness to levels previously unseen without bothering to think about the consequences.  It wasn’t like he had anything left to worry about them for.

He made some dumb comment about Jasper while they were getting ready to leave, one that he knows he would’ve regretted under other circumstances, and Monty snapped.

He went off, claiming Murphy only thought of himself, that he should’ve killed himself rather than live in space with Murphy for five years.

It was the exact kind of fire that Murphy needed.  Everyone had been tiptoeing around him, ignoring the fact that he chose to be an asshole when he chose to speak.  But not now.  Not Monty.  Not when he’d pushed the right buttons.

He was gearing up for a fight, an argument that would hopefully last the entirety of their oxygenator trip, when Monty started to turn away.

“I don’t know how Emori put up with you,” he muttered, and Murphy’s blood froze in his veins.

His fist had connected with Monty’s face before he even realized it was moving.

“You don’t get to talk about her!” he screamed, pushing him back into a wall, fisting the front of his suit.  “You didn’t know her!  You don’t get to say anything!”

Someone tugged at his shoulders and he let himself get pulled away.  Monty’s hands rose to cup his cheek.

“Have fun getting the oxygenator on your own,” Murphy spat.  He spun around, coming face to face with Echo.  “Fuck you, too,” he offered before stalking further into the lab.

He found an empty room without much effort, and let out a scream.  He punched the wall, the pain in his knuckles from hitting the steel far more satisfying than Monty’s face.  He yelled again, punched again, again and again, until his screams turned to wailing sobs and his knuckles were stained black with his blood.

The fight, the anger, it all drained out of him suddenly, and he collapsed onto the floor, tucked his knees into his chest, and cried.

 

**30 minutes BPF**

The communication system in the rocket was shot, which meant that unless they could get the power on in the Ark, they were toast.

There was a satellite where they could do just that.

Clarke and Bellamy were assigned to this particular mission.  Raven lead them outside, and Clarke glanced in concern at Murphy, who was sitting in the snow in his suit, staring out at the distantly approaching wall of fire.

They were about to head off when Echo stumbled out of the woods, the oxygenator in her arms, spouting that Monty was in trouble.  He’d been exposed to the radiation, had passed out.

And then Bellamy was leaving with her, promising to hurry as he raced off to find Monty before it was too late.

“Murphy,” Raven barked, and his head snapped in their direction.  “You’re with Clarke.  Hurry up.”

She retreated into the lab and Murphy stood, following behind Clarke in a worrying silence.

She didn’t have too much spare effort to put into worrying, however, as a mile was too long a walk to waste time chatting.

 

**10 minutes BPF**

It wasn’t working.  No matter what they did, it said the satellite dish wasn’t aligning.  And they were running out of time.

They tried everything they could think of, and Clarke was radioing Raven when Murphy found the instructions.

“Manual operation,” he read, and Clarke froze.  “Fuck, we have to go up there.”

They stared at the clock counting down on Clarke’s arm for longer than they should have, as the time ticked down.  They should’ve been on their way back by now.

“Clarke,” Murphy said, pleading.  “Go.  You can make it back.  It’s a one person job.”

She was already shaking her head before he finished.

“I’m not leaving you,” she promised.  “But I’m already sick.  If one of us is going back, it should be you.”

Murphy wasn’t even going to entertain that idea, and slung the backpack over his shoulder instead of answering, his jaw set.

Clarke’s eyes met his as she raised the radio to her face once more.  “Raven.  Bellamy.”  She couldn’t find herself to care if Murphy heard the way her voice broke on his name.  “Don’t wait for us.”  She dropped the radio, nodding at Murphy.  “Up we go.”

 

**5 minutes BPF**

Bellamy returned to the lab with Monty and Echo, expecting to see Clarke.  His heart stopped when he realized she wasn’t there, that she and Murphy hadn’t made it back yet.

Raven tried to reassure him, hurriedly because there was way too much going on for her to have time to realistically spare on comforting Bellamy, pointing out that they should be on their way back.  It did little, but he pretended to be satisfied with that, and helped get the last of everything ready to go.

Time moved too slowly and far too quickly, and then everyone was strapped in and he stood in the door, watching the clock tick down to zero and praying for Clarke and Murphy to come running into the lab.

“Bellamy,” Raven called, and he clenched his eyes shut.

“I know.”

“We have to go,” she told him.  “It’s now or never.”

Two more seconds.  Two more seconds and she’d be there.

One.

Two.

His heart broke as he pulled the door shut, desperately scanning the lab for her to appear.

She didn’t.

 

**PF**

They watched the rocket launch from three quarters of the way up the satellite tower.  Murphy swore, and Clarke squeezed her eyes shut.

The codes didn’t work.  They had to align the dish by hand.  It was easier with two people than it would have been with one, as the dish was heavy and hard to move, but they did it.  The dish aligned.

It was a race after that, back down the tower and back the mile to the lab.  Neither of them knew how well the lab would hold up against the radiation or the death wave, but it was their only option.

They were almost there when Clarke tripped over a log, sending her flying and sprawling onto the ground.

“Are you okay?” Murphy asked, pulling her back to her feet.  They both gasped at the large hole in the glass of her helmet.

“Shit.”  He tugged at her, trying to get her moving.  “Hurry up.”

Clarke didn’t need to be told twice, and they sprinted on, the death wave gaining on them with every step.

Murphy had to drag her the last few feet, slamming the door locked behind them.  He pulled off her helmet, steadying her as she leaned forward and spewed blood all over the floor.  Her skin was boiling, burning up from the radiation, and he swore under his breath.

“Clarke, stay with me,” he urged, pulling her with him away from the door and deeper into the lab.  She was unconscious before they made it.

Murphy sunk to the floor, tugging Clarke with him, and pulled off his own helmet.  This wasn’t fair.  None of this was fair.  Emori was supposed to be alive.  They were all supposed to be safe and up on the Ark.  Clarke wasn’t supposed to be dying.

He wasn’t going to fail, though.  Not at this.  Not again.  Clarke was all he had left, and there was no way in hell he was going to lose her, too.

He needed to treat her burns.  He needed to run tests.  There were a lot of things he needed to, but, for now, he just pulled Clarke’s unconscious body closer, buried his face in her hair, and cried.

* * *

  _And I can't breathe without you_  
_But I have to_  
_Breathe without you  
_ _But I have to_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First things first, sorry for killing off Emori. I love her and would hate for her to be killed off on the show, but unfortunately she had to go for this fic. RIP Emori, we will miss you.
> 
> Second things second, I'm not 100% sure when the next chapter will be up, so be sure to bookmark if you want to know the second it gets posted!
> 
> Comments water my children and kudos feed my crops!


	2. but it's always gonna hurt

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First things first, I have zero medical knowledge besides basic googling skills, so anything medical you just need to take with a grain of salt and a suspension of disbelief and maybe pretend that medical stuff has changed a hundred years from now. Also suspension of disbelief also extends to how long a food stock stays actually edible for. We're just going to pretend that any food they find in the lab is edible, even if it's a box of Kraft Dinner from before the first apocalypse. Cause that's how we roll here.
> 
> Second things second, this chapter is an absolute monster and had to be split in half because I got to the point I ended it at and was like wtf why are there so many words and decided to post it there because otherwise you'd have been reading this chapter for approximately twelve years. Also I wanted to get an update up. BUT this does mean there's a chance the next chapter will be faster because it's got a few scenes written already, so that's a plus there.
> 
> Third things third, APF stands for After Praimfaya and BPF stands for Before Praimfaya. Like BC and AD or BCE and CE. I feel like this is something you'd get without this being pointed out, but I just wanted to make a blanket statement covering it in case anyone was confused. It's just how time is being measured in this fic.
> 
> I am thrilled by how much you guys seem to be into this fic! We've still got a bunch of angst to go before we reach the less-angsty stage of this fic, but don't worry cause there will be a lot of ridiculousness scattered in with the angst.
> 
> Also!! [Here is a link](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7E8G3FWSpLRe92mRcUnUzr) to a playlist for this fic! Right now it's mostly got the songs used in the titles and the blurbs at the beginnings of chapters, but I'm gonna keep adding to it as I find songs that fit this fic. I've got more in a list, too, that fit things that go on later in the fic, but they're not in the playlist yet because spoilers. Also if you have suggestions, please feel free to leave them in a comment or send me them as an ask and they may or may not get added! So go check that out!
> 
> (this chapter is from the no rap Charlie Puth version of See You Again which has some different lyrics that I thought generally fit this chapter more. There's one on YouTube that Charlie Puth sings but I couldn't find it with him singing on Spotify so someone else is singing it but if you want to hear him sing that version you can find it on YouTube)
> 
> Anyway, that's about it for now. Please enjoy!

_Why’d you have to leave so soon?_  
_Why’d you have to go?_  
_Why’d you have to leave me when I needed you the most?_

* * *

 

**9 APF**

Clarke still hadn’t woken up. 

Murphy wasn’t sure how worried he should be.  There wasn’t much radiation poisoning on the Ark, and he hadn’t been much of a doctor since they’d made it down to the ground.

On the one hand, this coma—was it a coma?  How long did someone have to be unconscious before you started calling it a coma?  Why didn’t he remember this?  Fuck it.  As the most qualified and most conscious person in this lab, he was going to call it a coma and no one could stop him.

Anyway, on the one hand, the coma was a good thing.  If Clarke was unconscious, that meant she wasn’t feeling the obvious pain that her burns would be causing her.  It gave her a chance to rest and recover without needing to do anything else.  It also gave him a chance to run all the tests he could think might be necessary or helpful without her butting in and insisting she’s fine.

But on the other hand, Clarke was in a coma, and, as far as Murphy could tell, wasn’t showing any signs that she’d be waking up soon.  Which was bad in for a multitude of medial reasons that Murphy was trying not to think about.

But it was also bad in that it had been nine days since he’d had someone to talk to, and he was definitely not in a good place for being alone right now.

He’d spent the last nine days getting into a sort of routine.  Treat Clarke.  Change her fluids and bandages and redo any tests that might have different results.  Try to figure out just how screwed they were survival-wise in this stupid lab.  Eat something.  Repeat.

There were definitely perks of the lab, he’d found.  There was more than enough basic medical supplies to get Clarke through radiation treatment.  The computers were also way more medically adept than Murphy’s partial doctorate, which was beyond helpful.  Not that Murphy fully knew what to search for yet, but it was still one of the best things he’d found in this stupid lab.

Another one of the best things was the bed.  There was a bedroom down here, just a basic thing with a bed and a dresser that may or may not be filled—he hadn’t checked yet—and a table with a lamp.  Murphy hadn’t even used the bed yet.  He was too scared to leave Clarke alone for too long, so he’d been sleeping in a chair by the table he had her laid on.  When she woke up, or when the computers told him she was going to wake up, he’d move her into the bed, and maybe he’d finally get some sleep.

He'd also found a small kitchen that would work for them.  There was some food there, too.  It wasn’t enough to last them however long they’d be in this bunker for, but Murphy thought it should last at least until Clarke was healthy enough to be left alone while he tried to find more.  Where he’d actually find more food was a question for later, one he definitely was not going to think about right now.

There were also books.  Lots of books.  Also a TV area with a fairly comfortable looking couch that had been too heavy to drag into the main lab area for him to sleep on.

But the books were portable, and were something that could theoretically take his mind off everything while he waited for Clarke to wake up.

Which was what he was currently doing.  He had picked one at random, The Hunger Games, and, while it wasn’t doing much to distract him from his thoughts and he’d been staring at the same page for the better part of the last hour, it did give him a sort of grim satisfaction that this Katniss chick’s life was almost as terrible as his was.  At the rate this book was going, he honestly wouldn’t be surprised if her life actually ended up _worse_ than his.  Also he was fairly certain that whoever had come up with the whole fight to the death for the bunker thing that Octavia had been in had ripped it off from this book.  If trademarking had still been a thing, the Conclave people would be getting their asses sued off.  Maybe when the bunker opened up he’d sue them himself, just for fun.  He could probably figure out how to be a lawyer in five years.  It couldn’t be that difficult.

His eyes were scanning over the words as Katniss described her beauty team again without actually absorbing them when the beeping from a machine caught his attention.

Clarke’s heart monitor had been beeping more or less steadily for nine days straight.  There were a couple times in the first day or two where it had dropped off, and he’d had to shock her or give her a shot of epi to get it going again, times in which he’d thought his own heart was going to stop in response, but generally it had been steady.  Steady and familiar enough that it had faded into the background.

But the beeping started to speed up, and Murphy tossed the book to the floor as he jumped to his feet.

“Clarke,” he called, staring down at her, grabbing her cold hand between both of his.  “Can you hear me?”

She didn’t answer, and he glanced at the machine.  Her heart rate was definitely rising.  This was good.  He was pretty sure this was good, at least.  He didn’t have a lot of experience with comas.

Within ten minutes, he could see her eyes moving behind her lids.  Fifteen and they were open, glancing around wildly as she coughed, her chest spasming against the tube he’d pushed down her throat, the beeps of her heart monitor going crazy.

“Clarke,” he called again, dropping her hand to cup her cheek.  Her eyes darted to his face, the fear and confusion within them clear as day.  “Hey, you’re okay.  You’re okay.  I promise.  I need you to stay calm while I take your breathing tube out, okay?  Can you do that?”

It took a moment but then Clarke was nodding, and Murphy watched as she forcibly calmed herself down.  He grabbed the tube, slowly pulling it out of her throat.

Clarke broke into a coughing fit as soon as she was free to breathe on her own, and Murphy stepped away to find the nose one.  He wasn’t sure if Clarke would actually need it, but it was better safe than sorry.

“What happened?” she asked, after he’d gotten the nose piece situated and had started on checking her vitals.  Her voice was raw and shaky, possibly the weakest he’d ever heard it.

“You went unconscious just after we got inside,” he told her, concentrating on the blood pressure cuff as he pumped it up around her arm.  “You got a pretty bad dose of radiation sickness.  I wouldn’t touch your face or neck too much for a while.  They’re pretty badly burned.  I’ve been putting a cream on them.  I think it’s working.  You needed a few transfusions, and we don’t have any bagged blood, so I had to use mine.  We’re both O-neg, though, so I guess that’s lucky.  Your heart stopped a couple of times, but I restarted it.  Otherwise your internal organs seem to be doing pretty well.  Your fever’s broken, which is good.  You—”

“Murphy.”  He glanced up at her voice, at her hand on his arm.  Clarke’s eyes were dull, but she was watching him in concern, as if he was the patient and she was the not-doctor.  “How long was I out for?”

He took a deep breath, dropping the ball of the pressure cuff without actually taking the reading.  “Nine days,” he whispered, squeezing his eyes shut.  “Nine fucking days, Clarke.  I thought—I was starting to think you weren’t going to...”  He trailed off, unable to finished his sentence as tears started to burn at the inside of his eyelids.

Clarke squeezed his hand gently, or maybe it was as hard as she could, he didn’t know.  “I did,” she assured him, and he tried to concentrate on the steady beep of the heart monitor.  “Murphy, I’m still alive.  That’s because of you.  Thank you.”

Murphy tried to say something, but all that came out was a sob.  He sunk back into his chair, clutching her hand tightly, and let himself cry.

She was awake.  She was finally awake and he wasn’t alone anymore and she wasn’t going to die and he was _so fucking tired_.

When he’d finally cried himself out, he wiped his eyes and his nose on the sleeve of his shirt and went about checking Clarke’s vitals as if nothing had happened.  Clarke didn’t mention it, and he silently thanked her for that. 

Her vitals looked good, or at least as good as someone’s could look after spending nine days in a coma, and he told her as much before starting to unhook her from the machines.  He kept the heart monitor on, clipped to her finger, and the IV lines that were giving her fluids and nutrients, and left the tube hooked in her nose.  He’d monitor those a bit longer, unhook the IV once she’d proven she could hold down solid food.

Clarke was starting to drift off again once he’d finished, and he would have let her if he wasn’t so tired himself.

“Hey,” he whispered, gently shaking her shoulder.  Her eyes opened sleepily.  “There’s a comfier spot for you to sleep if you think you can walk there.  It’s not far.”

Clarke stared at him for a long moment.  “I think I can walk,” she decided, her voice slurred as sleep tried to pull her under.

Murphy nodded, and together they managed to get her sitting up.  They paused for a few seconds, waiting for Clarke’s dizziness to pass as she clutched his arms.  And then she was slowly sliding off the bed, her feet touching the floor.

Murphy had her grip her IV pole with one hand, her other arm wrapped around his shoulders.  He held her around the middle, taking as much of her weight as he could, and they slowly started their walk.

He could carry her if he had to—he’d already carried her onto the table in the first place, and, holding her as he was now, he could tell she’d lost an unhealthy amount of weight while in her coma—but he was pretty sure he remembered from somewhere that regaining the strength in her legs as quickly as possible was best.  He’d broken his leg once as a kid, and he knew how much atrophy sucked.

Clarke managed to make it to the bed, but was asleep before her head hit the pillow.  Murphy sighed and pulled the blankets up around her.  He retreated to the lab to grab the portable heart monitor, returning to the bedroom and re-hooking up her finger clip.

What little energy he had drained from him at once, and he barely remembered to turn off the light before collapsing on the other side of the bed and sinking into a deep, dreamless sleep.

 

**17 APF**

 

Clarke glared at Murphy from the bed.  He mirrored her expression, his arms crossed in front of him as he blocked the doorway.

“Murphy.”

“No.”

She rolled her eyes, starting to push down the blankets.  “I’m fine,” she insisted when he crossed the room to gently push her back down on the bed.

“I think a few more days in bed will be better,” he told her again, and Clarke huffed in annoyance.

“And _I_ think I’ll probably kill you if I have to stay in this stupid bed another minute,” she countered.

Murphy sighed.  “As your doctor—”

“You’re not a doctor,” Clarke pointed out with a harsh laugh.  “I got, like, four more months of training than you, so if either of us is a doctor, it’s me, and in my professional medical opinion, I need to get out of this fucking bed.”

She knew she was right.  There was no reason for Murphy to keep her in the bed any longer.  She was getting better, however slowly.  She could walk as far as the bathroom and back every few hours, and was a lot less out of breath doing so than even yesterday.  She was improving.

But if she had to spend one more day in this boring room doing nothing but reading, she was going to go crazy.  They’d spent so much time doing nothing that Murphy had finished the entire Hunger Games series twice and had major opinions about them.

He’d made the mistake of mentioning the TV room three days ago, and it was all Clarke could think about.  She couldn’t spend another day reading.  Reading gave her too much time to think, and thinking made her panic.  A TV, though, meant movies at least, maybe some TV shows as well, and Clarke knew she’d always gotten way too into anything on a screen.  It was the perfect way to stop thinking.

If only Murphy would let her out of the fucking bed.

She sighed, leaning back against her pillows.  “How about we make a deal?” she suggested.  “You let me try to walk to the TV room, and, if I can’t make it to the couch, you win.”

Murphy stared at her for a long moment, chewing on the inside of his cheek.

“Do you actually feel better?” he finally asked, and Clarke nodded.  He let out a breath, stepping back and holding out his hands.  “Let’s go then.”

Clarke grinned at him and swung herself slowly around so her feet hit the floor.  Murphy helped her into the fuzzy purple slippers they’d found—they were a bit too big, but it was this or freeze her feet off on the cement floor—and then stood back up to held her stand.

“You good?” he asked, letting go to gather up a blanket and a couple of sweaters when she confirmed.

It took a while, Clarke shuffling along down the hallway, her chest burning with every step, and Murphy following closely behind as if he expected her to collapse at any second, but they eventually made it to the TV room.

Clarke all but collapsed on the couch, breathing heavily for a few long minutes before she could speak.

“See?” she said.  “I’m fine.”

Murphy seemed skeptical but didn’t say argue, instead dropping the blanket and sweaters on the couch next to her and announcing he was going for snacks.

Clarke had to rest for a few more minutes before she was able to take in the room, finding the remote on a small coffee table in front of her.  She picked it up, clicking on the TV and scrolling through the options of the shows that popped up on the screen.

By the time Murphy returned with some pasta and waters, she’d gotten cold again.  She was always cold now.  It was almost definitely because of the radiation, but it was still annoying.  She’d tugged her sweatshirt on and was burrowing under the blanket when he got back.

“Thank you,” she said, accepting her bowl.  Honestly, finding out Murphy was a phenomenal cook hadn’t been one of the most surprising things since ending up on the ground, all things considered, but if life had been a little less insane, it definitely would’ve been up there.

“Did you find something to watch?” he asked, stealing half the blanket.

Clarke nodded, picking up the remote once more.  “It’s called Grey’s Anatomy.”

Murphy shot her a look.  “Like the text book?” he asked, and Clarke hummed in confirmation.  “Clarke, we are not watching a text book.”

“It’s not about the text book.”  Clarke rolled her eyes, gesturing at the screen.  “It’s about some doctor intern chick and whoever else is at her hospital.  It’s got, like, forty seasons, and I think it’ll help us brush up on our medical knowledge.  Probably.”

She watched as Murphy’s eyes scanned over the bio, and he shrugged and relaxed back into the couch.  “If it sucks, we’re changing it.”

Clarke grinned and started the first episode before digging into her pasta.

“She’s kinda hot,” Clarke offered as they watched the girl on screen panic.  The naked guy stood up from the floor.  “Him too.”

“She’s late for her first day of work,” Murphy commented.  “Bet she works with him.”

Clarke laughed.  “Bet he’s her boss.”

*********

Clarke paused the TV, Dr. Preston Burke’s face taking up the screen.  “See?  He totally looks like Jaha.”

Murphy squinted at the screen for a moment.  “I still don’t see it,” he said decisively, and Clarke groaned.

“I don’t know how you _can’t_ see it!” she waved wildly at the TV, and Murphy snatched the remote from her hand to keep the episode going.  “It’s all I can see when I look at his dumb face.  I can’t even watch Christina be hot in their sex scenes because all I see is Wells’ dad and it’s fucking _weird_.”

Murphy cackled.  He didn’t see the similarities between this asshole TV doctor and Jaha that Clarke apparently couldn’t not see, but he was honestly thankful for that.

They’d been hooked from Bailey’s introduction and were already into season two.  Had they re-learnt any medical knowledge?  Honestly, not really.  Were they thoroughly invested in the lives of these fictional doctors?  Absolutely.

There was no way in hell that Murphy was going to let Clarke know that he was thankful she’d convinced him to let her move around today.  The drama at this fake hospital was more than enough to distract him from his thoughts, and he’d only had one near panic attack all day when dinner had taken too long to cook.  It was honestly a record.

Clarke was starting to nod off towards the end of the episode, so Murphy turned the TV off when it ended, helping her to her feet and leading her back to the bedroom.  He turned his back to her as they changed into their pyjamas, ones they’d found in the dresser that didn’t fit quite right, and then took the first turn in the bathroom.

His thoughts started to drift as he brushed his teeth, staring at his reflection in the mirror.  The circles under his eyes were too dark, his hair too long, his skin stretched too tightly around his bones.  They’d been eating, sure, but they still didn’t know how long it would be until they found more food, so he’d been rationing what they had.  Not as badly as they’d had to ration before, but it was still less than they should be eating, and that was before he’d given Clarke the bigger portion of whatever he made.  She needed it more right now, needed to get healthy again, and he’d lie and say he ate some of his while cooking whenever she asked.

He’d barely slept since Praimfaya.  Sleep meant dreams and dreams meant nightmares and nightmares meant watching Emori die again and again.

He shook himself out of his thoughts, finishing his teeth as quickly as he could.  He didn’t want to think about any of this, but it was as if he couldn’t think of anything else.  Every free moment his brain had, he was stuck in a never ending loop of how he was never going to see her again, how much he’d failed, how terrible everything was.

He slammed the door open, and Clarke jumped from her seat on the bed, automatically reaching for the rifle on the floor.

“Sorry,” he muttered, scrubbing a hand over his face.  He made sure she made it into the bathroom before sinking onto the bed and burying his face in his hands.

He had been doing so good.  He’d almost made it through the day.  Just a few more minutes, and today would be over, and he would have survived another day without her.

When did it start getting easier?

“You good?”

He nodded without looking up, and listened as Clarke crawled into her side of the bed, pulling the covers up over her.  He waited another moment before standing up and crossing the room to turn off the lights.

He murmured a quiet goodnight to Clarke as he climbed back in, laying down and hoping sleep would overtake him before he had too much time to think.

A sniffle came from Clarke after a few minutes, and then another, the sniffles quickly turning into a choked off sob.  Murphy squeezed his eyes shut, turning his face into his pillow to muffle his own.

He eventually drifted off like that, pretending he couldn’t hear Clarke’s cries as she pretended the same of his.

*********

Clarke gasped awake, whatever nightmare she’d been having already fading away.

She looked at the alarm clock on the dresser across the room, the harsh red numbers telling her it wasn’t even midnight yet.  Groaning, she pressed her head back into the pillow.  How had she only been asleep a few hours?  How was that even possible?

When she started to wonder exactly which memory her mind had decided to relive in her nightmare, Clarke realized she wasn’t going to fall asleep again.  She sighed and sat up, slowly lowering her feet to the floor and searching in the dark for her slippers.

She flicked on the light in the bathroom after closing the door, careful to avoid her reflection as she made her way to pee.  She wasn’t careful enough when washing her hands, though, and ended up staring at herself.  The still-healing burns that covered her face and snaked down under her shirt.  The way one of her eyes still couldn’t open all the way.  The grease in her hair from not washing it since...she couldn’t remember how long it had been.  Before Praimfaya, at least.  The water hurt too much the one time she’d attempted to even consider trying again anytime soon.

It had been barely more than a year since she’d been sent to the ground to die.  Why did it feel like so much longer?  The seventeen years and nine months she’d spent on the Ark seemed almost like a dream.

Murphy had called them cockroaches when she’d mentioned it a few days ago, a couple of bugs that should have died a hundred thousand times by now but were still somehow alive, and she couldn’t help but agree.  She couldn’t think of a better way to explain it, how they, the two with nightblood, happened to be the ones left behind, or any of the times they just happened to survive before that.

She sighed, tearing her gaze away from the mirror.  She was too awake right now.  Going back to bed would mean lying there for who knows how long, with nothing but her thoughts to occupy her.

She bypassed the bed instead, slowly shuffling her way out of the room and down the hall, the strips of emergency lights guiding her way to the main area of the lab.

She sunk into a chair, breathing heavily to catch her breath, and stared at the screen in front of her.  The computer still couldn’t tell if anyone was up there, in what was left of the Ark, but she wasn’t expecting it to.  She tried not to think of the other possibilities, about what it would mean if they hadn’t had enough fuel or enough oxygen, if she and Murphy hadn’t gotten the satellite ready in time.  She tried not to, but the thoughts crept into her dreams, pushed their way to the front of her mind when she didn’t want to think about them.

And she didn’t.  She was going to believe they were up there in space, alive and well.  She had to believe that.  She didn’t know what she’d do if she couldn’t believe it.

A bit of a conversation she’d overheard came back to her, Monty and Raven arguing a thousand years ago at the Dropship when they were trying to contact the Ark.  The frequency the Ark was always on hadn’t meant anything to her then, but, while she still didn’t understand the why behind it, it did give her an idea now.

She reached forward, fiddling with the dial on the radio until the numbers matched the ones Raven had said all those months ago.  She took a deep breath, raising the radio to her mouth.

“Ark, this is Becca’s Lab.  Come in, Ark.  Over.”  She paused, her finger off the button, and held her breath as she waited for a response.

 _What did you really expect?_ she asked herself when none came.

“It’s Clarke,” she tried again, closing her eyes against the tears that started to gather.  “It’s been 17 days since Praimfaya.  Murphy and I are still alive.  The nightblood, it worked.  God, I miss you guys.”

And just like that, the floodgates opened, and she let herself sob as she recounted everything that had happened since she’d woken from her coma.

She felt better when she was finished, though she didn’t know why she did.  She wiped the tears away on the back of her arm, staring down at the radio in her hand as if it held all the answers.

“Bellamy,” she whispered into it, closing her eyes as she addressed him for the first time.  “Bellamy, I don’t know what I’m supposed to do without you.  You’re—you’re my everything.  I’m waiting for you, okay?  Five years.  I—”

She cut herself off, tripping over the words.  She’d wanted to tell him that night, but had held it back.  Everyone she’d been in love with before were dead, and she couldn’t lose him too.  Not Bellamy.  She didn’t know what she’d do if she lost him.

She’d tried to tell him before Praimfaya.  Some part of her had known they weren’t going to be together at the end of that, that that was her chance, but he’d stopped her.

And now it was five years before she’d see him again.

Whatever chance there was that they were listening right now, she couldn’t have the first time she told him be over a radio, not when he couldn’t say them back, not when she couldn’t see the look on his face when she said them, when she couldn’t kiss him or hold him.

“I’ve got something important to tell you,” she said instead, “and I can’t tell you for the first time over the radio, okay?  Five years.”  She said it like a prayer, already knowing she’d be counting down the days.  “Please don’t be late.”

She dropped the radio back on the desk and sat staring at it for a few more minutes.  It felt as though a weight had been lifted off her shoulders, one she hadn’t even known was there, and she was suddenly tired enough that she knew she’d fall asleep as soon as her head hit the pillow.

But sleeping meant going back to bed which meant standing up and walking there, and she had to muster up the energy before she could do that.

A blood curdling scream tore through her thoughts, and she instinctively reached for her gun before remembering it wasn’t on her.  A second scream came, half muffled in a sob, and she pinpointed it to the bedroom.

She urged her heart to slow down as she shuffled along as quickly as she could, reminding herself that it was just her and Murphy here, that the screams were because of a nightmare and not because anyone was actually trying to hurt him.

The screaming had stopped by the time she reached the bedroom, but the sobbing hadn’t.  She flicked on the light, freezing to catch her breath for a moment as she watched Murphy thrash around, still caught up in whatever horrors his brain decided to relive or invent.

She crossed the room, calling out his name as she sunk down onto the bed beside him.  She grabbed his shoulders, shaking him gently.

“Murphy,” she called again, louder.  “Wake up.”

He bolted up, eyes wild and still half in his dream, his hand diving under his pillow for his gun.

“It’s me,” she said, grabbing his arm, struggling to hold it in place as he fought her.  She’d managed to duck a few nights ago when he’d managed to get it out, the bullet hole by the door a stark reminder of what could have happened to her head had he been slightly more awake.  “It’s Clarke.  You’re safe, Murphy.”

He struggled a moment longer before sinking back into himself. 

“Clarke?” he whispered, all the fight leaving him.

She released his arm, reaching her shaking hand up to stroke his hair instead.  “I’m here,” she confirmed.  “You’re okay.  We’re safe.  Everything’s okay.”

He didn’t answer, just pushed himself forward to bury his head in her neck, clinging to her as he sobbed.  She held him back, stroking him gently and whispering words neither of them really believed as she tried to calm him down.

They’d fall asleep like that, as they did every night when one of them woke up screaming.  Then the next morning, they wouldn’t talk about it, would pretend that Murphy hadn’t tried to shoot her, that Clarke hadn’t tried to smother him with a pillow.  If they kept pretending they were fine, maybe one day they really would be.

 

**23 APF**

“Hey.”  Clarke poked Murphy in the thigh with her foot as the credits started rolling on the TV.

“What?”

Clarke took a moment to hit pause before the next episode started.  “How much of this place have you actually explored?”

Murphy shrugged.  “Not much,” he admitted.  “I didn’t want to leave you alone too long in case there was an emergency.”

Clarke nodded and stood, holding out a hand.  “That settles it,” she declared.  “We’re exploring.”

Murphy started to argue that maybe she wasn’t actually feeling well enough to do this, but she ignored him, walking back into the hall instead.  He followed her a few moments later, grumbling under his breath, and Clarke bit back her grin.

Murphy pointed out the rooms he had looked in, mostly the ones near the lab itself.  They were either storage rooms or empty, and then there was the TV room, their bedroom, the kitchen, and a gym that neither of them had touched yet and, if they were being honest, probably never would.

They continued further down the hall that held these rooms, assuming that was where they’d find anything exciting.

The next few doors revealed more storage rooms, and, other than some art supplies in one, they weren’t very exciting.

“Caution,” Clarke read, the letters big and red on a door at the far end of the hall.  “Airlock ahead.”

Murphy sighed.  “We’re not going in there.”

“I’m just going to read what’s in it,” Clarke told him, bypassing the few doors between them and the exciting one, doors that probably just held more storage.  She stopped in front of it, staring at the words.  “Holy shit.”

“What?”  Murphy joined her, reading over her shoulder.  “Fuck.  Emergency food storage?”

Clarke spun back around, bumping into his chest as she passed him.  “We’re going in there.”

“ _I’m_ going in there,” Murphy corrected.  “If there’s an airlock, it could mean there’s radiation in there, and you’re not well enough for me to feel comfortable with you going in there.”

Clarke stared at him, screwing up her face.  “Take a radiation detector,” she told him, sighing.  “If there’s no radiation, we might as well know about it.”

She watched him put on his hazmat suit and head into the airlock.  She sat on the floor outside and waited, grabbing a sketchpad she’d found earlier and drawing absently as she waited.

And waited.

And waited.

She was starting to panic when the sound of the airlock activating finally reached her ears, and she scrambled to her feet.

When Murphy finally emerged, it was with a cart piled high with boxes, his helmet haphazardly on top.

“There’s no radiation,” he informed her, grinning.  “It does also lead to the mansion, though, so I get why they airlocked it.  But shit, Clarke, there’s so much food.  We could live here for _years_.  I’m going to make the best meal in the history of meals tonight.”

 

 **24 APF**  

Clarke woke up to an empty bed.

This itself wasn’t strange.  Murphy tended to wake up earlier than her these days.

She swung out of bed and pulled on a hoodie, tying her hair up on top of her head as she made her way towards the kitchen.

“Did we find pancake mix yesterday or was that a dream?” she asked, rounding the corner.  “Cause I—oh.”

She stopped, squinting at the empty kitchen.  She would have assumed he would be there, especially after finding the pantry the day before.

She grabbed a granola bar from the counter, opening the wrapper as she continued down the hallway.

He wasn’t in the TV room or the gym, and she didn’t bother checking any of the storage rooms she passed.

Which left the lab, which, incidentally, was where she found him.

He was hunched over a screen, one attached to a machine that Clarke was reasonably sure they hadn’t used before.  Maybe he’d used it while she was comatose and was rechecking some results?

She took a bite of her granola bar as she crossed the room, not taking any care to be quiet.  Not startling each other was how they didn’t get guns pointed at their faces, after all.

But Murphy didn’t look up as she got closer, and she froze when she was able to make out the picture.  There was a face and some hands, the smallest hint of feet towards the edge.  The head took up most of the screen, disproportionately large for the body.

Clarke’s heart started to race as she put the pieces together, as the oddly shaped photograph picked at something familiar, something she hadn’t really thought of since they had still been in med training.

It was an ultrasound.  An ultrasound of a baby.

There was the chance that Murphy had just found it, that it was of some baby that had lived a hundred years ago, but there was a rock in her gut and another in her throat that told her that wasn’t what this was.

“Murphy,” she said quietly, grimacing at the way he flinched at her voice, like he hadn’t heard her enter the room at all.  “What is this?”

He didn’t answer for a long time, his fingers resuming their absent tracing of the baby's face along the screen, which only cemented the idea that she already knew what it was, what this ultrasound picture meant.  As the seconds ticked on, the feeling that she was going to cry or throw up or both grew stronger and stronger.

When he did speak, two tiny words that solidified the lump in her throat, his voice was as small and as broken as she’d ever heard it.

“My son.”

 

**28 BPF**

“John.”  His arm shook again, and Murphy groaned in his sleep, burrowing deeper into the comfort of his bed.  The beds at Becca’s house were the comfiest things he’d ever felt, and he never wanted to leave.  _“John.”_

He jolted awake this time, one hand diving under his pillow for his gun and the other swinging over to cover Emori.  Gun in hand, he scanned the room, eyes wild as he searched for the intruder.

“John,” Emori said, giggling, and Murphy glanced over his shoulder at her.  She was grinning, not looking anywhere near as terrified as she should be at being woken suddenly in the middle of the night.

“There’s no one here,” she told him, her arms wrapping around his stomach from behind.  “Sorry I scared you.”

She stretched up, their lips connecting in a kiss.  It took a moment before he was able to relax into it, to lower his gun and slow his heartrate and accept that nothing was going to kill them, not right now.

“You good?” Emori pulled back once he’d fully relaxed, as much as he could, and swept a hand over his cheek.

Murphy nodded and pulled away enough to shove the gun back under his pillow.  He spun around, wrapping Emori up in his arms and tugging her back into the bed.

“Did you just wake me up to scare me and then kiss me?” he mumbled, his face buried in her neck.  “Or did you have something else in mind?”

Emori laughed, her fingers running through his hair.  “I thought John Murphy doesn’t get scared.”

“I don’t.”  Murphy squeezed her tighter.  “I’m tired.”

“Right,” Emori agreed.  She shuffled underneath him, her fingers prying his face away.  “Sit up.  I need to show you something.”

Murphy groaned, making himself as heavy as he could and pressing her down into the bed.  “Sleep,” he insisted, already feeling it’s hold take him over once more.

Emori countered his strong argument with a laugh and a light shove, sending him tumbling off her.

“John, please.”  He peeked open one eye and pouted at her, watching as she sat up with a soft gasp.  He sighed and opened the other one, gesturing for her to continue.

Emori rolled her eyes at him, grabbing one of his hands and tugging it towards him.  Murphy gamely rolled onto his side, raising a brow in question as she situated it on her stomach.

“Nice abs?” Murphy said after a long moment of nothing, and Emori hit him with a pillow.

“Wait a minute,” she scolded, adding under her breath, “Asshole.”

So Murphy waited, his eyes drooping shut as he wondered what he was supposed to be waiting for.  Maybe this was just a weird dream.  Maybe dream-Emori would turn into a dinosaur when the clock struck midnight and eat him.

He was about to question her again when he felt it, a soft fluttering against his hand.  His eyes popped open and he sat up quickly, his other hand joining the first as his eyes found Emori’s.  He held his breath as he waited, and there it was again.

“Was that—?” he cut himself off, eyes darting between Emori’s and his hands.  She nodded, her grin stretching wider.

“A baby,” she confirmed.  “We’re having a baby, John.”

Murphy’s hands left her stomach to cup her face, pulling her into a kiss.

A _baby_.  He was going to have a baby.  He was going to be a _father_.  For a moment, the world wasn’t ending.  For a few moments, he forgot that there was a solid possibility he wasn’t going to live through the next few months.  For a few moments, everything was perfect and he was safe and warm and with the woman he loved, and nothing else mattered.

“We’re having a baby,” he repeated, breathless against Emori’s lips.  He laughed and tugged her down to the bed, covering her face in kisses.

“I thought you wanted to go back to sleep,” she teased.

Murphy shook his head.  “Not tired,” he said, and, though he really did need more sleep, it wasn’t a lie.  He hadn’t felt more awake in weeks, months, maybe even years.

He grinned at Emori before darting down, pressing a kiss to the skin of her stomach where her shirt had risen up.

“Hi, baby,” he cooed, kissing her again.  “I’m your papa, and I love you very much.”

“You’re such a dork,” Emori laughed, tugging on his arm.  “Come back up here and kiss me.”

Murphy grinned at her, not offering any protests as he let her pull her up the bed. 

“I suppose I can do that,” he allowed, pulling her into a kiss.

 

**24 APF**

Murphy closed his eyes, the image of his son burned into the back of his eyelids after staring at the screen for so long.

He’d been an idiot to think Clarke wouldn’t find out.  There had been nothing stopping her from finding the photos.  She was in the lab without him all the time.

But somehow the thought of her finding out had never crossed his mind.  This was his son, his baby, his perfect little secret.  He had considered telling her, had told her himself dozens of times while she was in her coma, when he spent his time between trying to keep her alive and sobbing over how he couldn’t do the same for his family.

He had come to the decision not to tell her.  Telling her would mean talking about it, talking about _him_ , and he just couldn’t.

He wasn’t sure how long he sat there, how long Clarke stood behind him in silence, but it was both too long and not long enough.

“If you,” Clarke started, her words glaringly loud after the quiet.  She stopped, clearing her throat.  “If you want to talk about it, I’m here.”

Murphy laughed harshly as a sudden flare of anger sprung up, spinning around to glare at her.

“Talk about what?” he snapped, pushing down the thread of guilt at the way she jumped back.  “How Emori is dead?  How our son is dead?  How my family would’ve been alive if Bellamy hadn’t opened the fucking door to save his sister?  How my parents were already dead because I couldn’t save them, and now the rest of my family is too?  Fuck off, Clarke.”

He turned around before the tears stinging his eyes could start falling, returning his gaze to his son.  His son, who never even got the chance to be born because the world is fucked and nothing is fair.

Clarke didn’t say anything for a long time, and Murphy started to think she’d left.

“I’m going to make pancakes,” she said finally, quietly.  “We can watch more Grey’s while we eat them and not talk, if you want.”

He didn’t respond and, eventually, he heard her walk away.

He sat there a while longer, thinking of all the things he wouldn’t get to do with his son, how he hadn’t even known him for a month before he was gone, and cried.

These were things he’d cried for a thousand times, things he’d cry for a thousand more.  It wasn’t fair.  None of it was fair.

But none of it was changing either.

He wiped his eyes and took one last, longing look at the picture of his son before heading down the hallway.

Clarke looked up when he entered the TV room, nodding slightly at him before queuing up the next episode.  He sat stiffly on the opposite end of the couch and picked up the plate she’d left for him on the coffee table.

He spent the next few episodes slowly relaxing into the couch, moving the pancakes around on his plate and occasionally eating a bite.  Clarke didn’t say a word the whole time, and he didn’t blame her.  She’d done nothing to deserve him yelling at her.  He wouldn’t blame her if she was pissed.

Yang and Karev were arguing about something, but Murphy wasn’t really paying attention.  Maybe Clarke was right.  Not talking about it wasn’t helping.  He hadn’t really talked about his feelings since before his parents died.  Bottling them up was so much easier.

He’d talked with Emori, and it was terrifying, but it felt good after, he felt safe.

Clarke wasn’t Emori.  He didn’t think that talking to her would be the same.

But maybe it could still help.

“I found out just before the whole nightblood thing went down,” he told her, quietly, still staring at the TV.  Clarke glanced over at him but didn’t say anything, and he took a deep breath.  “Emori had suspected for a bit, but that was the first time she’d really felt him kick.  It was—it was amazing.  He’s—I thought I had another chance, a chance to change and be better than who I am, to actually be good at something.  I thought I could keep them safe.”

He paused, waiting for his lip to stop quivering.  Clarke didn’t make a sound, and he was grateful for that.

“But I lost them both.”  His voice shook with the words, breaking the way his heart had when Emori’s had stopped beating.  “I lost them.  My family’s gone.  I don’t have anyone left.”

He closed his eyes against the tears, his fork digging into his hand as he gripped it far too tight.

He jumped when Clarke squeezed his arm.

“You’ve got me.”

He didn’t admit how much that meant, how it was everything and not nearly enough, but just nodded instead.  He opened his eyes, looking at the TV for a distraction and realizing he had no idea what was going on.

“Can you restart this episode?”

He watched Clarke swallow from the corner of his vision and then nod.

“Of course.”

 

**31 APF**

There were things they didn’t talk about.

They didn’t talk about Praimfaya, how they didn’t know who actually made it into the bunker, or if the rocket actually made it to the Ark.  They didn’t talk about everyone and everything they lost that day.

They didn’t talk about Murphy’s son, or the drawing Murphy had found of him on his pillow the day after Clarke had found out about him.  Clarke didn’t want to push it, and had decided that Murphy would talk about him if and when he was ready.

They didn’t talk about how Clarke radioed the Ark every day, how she never got an answer.  They didn’t talk about how Murphy knew, or how Clarke knew that he knew.  They didn’t talk about how pointless it probably was, how they had no way of knowing if they could even hear her.

They didn’t talk about the 100, how there were less than ten of them left, if that, how the Ark’s plan to send them down to the ground to die was over 90% a success.  They didn’t talk about anyone else they’d lost, either, their parents, their loves, their friends.

They didn’t talk about Clarke’s other drawings, the ones of every person they’d known, all the ones that had died before and after they’d come to Earth, the ones that covered the walls, that appeared so quickly it was as if Clarke feared she’d forget their faces.

They didn’t talk about the nightmares that they had almost every night, about how most nights one of them would wake the other with their screams.  They didn’t talk about the checklist Clarke had found in the computer, how they checked every single box for PTSD.

They didn’t talk about a lot of things.

They talked about Grey’s Anatomy, about what show they were going to watch when they finished it.  They talked about what they were going to make for dinner, about how much they missed meat and fruit.  They talked about how long they thought it would take before they could go outside again, how far they might have to travel before they found somewhere they could live.

It wasn’t healthy, the way they were going.  Both of them knew it, but neither did anything to change it.  It was just another thing they didn’t talk about.

They did, however, talk about how Clarke was healing.  Her burns were doing well enough that she’d managed to wash her hair that morning while Murphy made waffles.  Most of the rest of her symptoms had disappeared, and she was feeling healthy again.

She made a detour to the lab to call the Ark, to call Bellamy, and tell them the news.  She told them about how good the waffles smelt, too, and then trailed off as she realized nothing else had happened between the night before and now.

She promised them—him—she’d call again later in the day, and left to rejoin Murphy.

“Waffles are getting cold,” he told her, already pressing play on the next episode.

They had a routine.  It was nice, really, even though it sort of wasn’t.  They both knew there were people they’d rather have with them, that they’d pick someone else before each other if they’d had the choice.  They knew this couldn’t last, this ignoring everything important and pretending all that mattered was television and dinner.

But, for now, it was good.

 

**35 APF**

Murphy woke up with Clarke in his arms.  He couldn’t remember which of them had initiated it, which had woken to the other’s screams and calmed them down.  The nightmares all blurred together.

It was, however, the first time he really considered the fact that, after that first time during the night, the nightmares tended to take a break.

He pulled away from Clarke, adjusting the blankets over her as he crept out of the room.

He thought about it more while he made breakfast.  They’d fallen asleep on the couch a few times, having stayed up too late to find out the outcome of a cliff hanger or just because they’d lost track of time, and neither of them had had a single nightmare any of those times either.

Murphy hadn’t paid much attention in class when they’d talked about sleep cycles, so he didn’t know if maybe they just hadn’t reached the stage of sleep where dreams happened, but it was still interesting.

He was still mulling it over when Clarke got up, sleepily pouring herself a cup of tea.

He thought about it through the first episode of Grey’s.  The safest he’d felt since he was sent to the ground, probably even before, had been when he and Emori were holding each other.  It didn’t make sense at all, really, considering he really wasn’t that safe a lot of the time when they were together.  There was no logical reason he should have felt safer just because she was in his arms.

But he also remembered crawling into bed with his parents when he was a kid, when a monster lived under his own bed or in his closet, or every night for a month after Mbege had dared him to sneak into a floating when he was nine and he’d seen it again and again in his nightmares.

He’d felt safe then, being wrapped up in other people, and he wondered vaguely whether he felt the same way now.

He could tell Clarke knew that something was up with him, but she didn’t bring it up, and he wasn’t planning on bringing it up with her either.

*********

“Something’s up with you.”

He stopped tossing, and glanced over at Clarke, her face just visible in the darkness of their bedroom.

“What?”

“You’ve been acting weird all day.”  Clarke sighed.  “You don’t have to talk about it, but if you want to...”

She trailed off and he didn’t say anything, considering his options.  He could just not bring it up, and Clarke wouldn’t bring it up, and this would be just another thing they didn’t talk about.

Or he could say something, and Clarke could either say no, or she could agree, which would either mean things didn’t change or they did.  Either way it would definitely be awkward.

Clarke rolled back over when he had been silent for a while, and he knew he could just leave it at that.

“Clarke?” he heard himself saying, and she hummed in response.  “Can I try something?”

It took her a moment to answer.  “Okay.”

He considered for a few seconds how to go about it, before scooting closer in the bed.  She lifted her back as he slid one arm underneath, and he wrapped the other around her stomach.  She was tense in his arms, and he could feel his own tenseness in his muscles.

“Is this okay?” he asked, trying to figure out a good position for his head.

“Yeah.”

Murphy didn’t say anything to that, and neither did Clarke, and they lay there for the better part of an hour before either began to relax.  It was awkward, as Murphy had predicted it would be, and he tried not to move as much as possible, and had a feeling Clarke was doing the same.  But eventually, one after the other, they both drifted off.

And that night, for the first time since Praimfaya, or, honestly, even before that, neither Clarke nor Murphy woke up screaming.

He called that a win.

 

**37 APF**

_Bellamy rolled towards her, his arm wrapping around her waist and tugging her closer._

_“Morning,” he whispered, his nose buried in her hair, the scent of whatever shampoo she’d used wafting up into his nose._

_“Morning,” Clarke whispered back, twisting in his grip.  He loosened it enough so she could spin around, her own arms wrapping around his neck.  Her nose brushed against his, resting there for a moment before she caught his lips in a kiss._

_Bellamy moved above her, his fingers digging into her hair as her own tugged him closer.  This was bliss.  This was heaven.  This was the only place he was meant to be._

_He pulled back, gazing down at her.  Her eyes were bright and her lips red from kissing, and she was grinning up at him._

_“God, I love you,” he whispered, grinning back at her.  He leaned down, pressing a few more quick kisses to her lips, her cheeks, her nose._

_“Then why’d you leave me to die?”_

_He jerked backwards, staring down at Clarke in horror.  She looked as horrible as she had that last day, her eyes bloodshot and sunken, her face yellowing.  She coughed, and blood splattered against his face._

_“Why’d you leave me to die, Bellamy?”_

Bellamy woke with a gasp, sitting up in his bed.  He wasn’t at Becca’s house, on a bed that felt like clouds with Clarke wrapped up in his arms.  He was on the Ark in a bed that was too short for him with a mattress that made his back hurt, and Clarke had been dead for over a month.

He glanced at the clock by his bed, which stated that it was far too early for him to be awake, and then pressed his face into his hands.  He’d been having a variation of that dream every night since they’d made it to the Ark.  He’d watched her die over and over, listened as she accused him of letting her.

Rationally, he knew it wasn’t his fault.  They had to leave if any of them wanted a chance at surviving.  There wasn’t any time to wait for Clarke and Murphy, and, if they had, they’d all be dead.  Clarke and Murphy were the only reason they were able to make it to the Ark at all.

He’d had to close the door.  He knew that.  He really did.

But it didn’t change the fact that he was the one who had closed the door without Clarke.  It didn’t change the fact that he left her to die.  It didn’t change the fact that she was dead and he’d never told her he loved her.

Thinking about this wasn’t doing him any good.  He knew he’d have to get a full night’s sleep one night if he ever wanted to stop being exhausted at every moment, but tonight was not that night.

He swung out of bed, mending at the waist for a few moments as he waited for the dizziness to pass, and then pulled on some clothes and his shoes.  A run would make him tired enough that hopefully he could have a dreamless sleep for the rest of the night.

He left his room, starting with a slow jog around the loop of the ring to warm up.  Harper and Monty’s room was silent as he passed, as were Echo’s and Raven’s.  He sped up as he started the second loop, going faster and faster the longer he was running.  Maybe he’d just pass out from exhaustion again.  The floor was only slightly less comfortable than his bed.

He wasn’t sure how long he ran, the same circle of doors and windows and an emptiness that the Ark had never had, but it was long enough that his legs buckled under him and he collapsed on the ground, slipping into unconsciousness.

Monty was the one who woke him, shaking his shoulder.

“This isn’t healthy.”

Bellamy ignored him, pushing to his feet.  His vision blurred, and he had to press his hand to the wall for a moment while the dizziness passed before he could start walking towards the dining room.

“Seriously, Bellamy,” Monty insisted.  “We don’t get enough calories for you to be wasting all of yours on running.”

“I’m fine,” Bellamy insisted, and Monty dropped it.  Bellamy wondered vaguely how much longer it would be before someone didn’t drop it.  He knew he wasn’t fine.  He knew this was unhealthy as fuck, and he’d already lost a significant amount of the muscle mass he’d put on on the ground.  They all had—algae wasn’t exactly the most fattening food source—but Bellamy knew his running was making it worse.  He needed to figure his shit out soon, or he was going to pay for it.

He sunk into a seat at the table, barely registering the others already gathered, and rested his head on the edge.

“You realize you’ve got a bed because you’re supposed to sleep in it,” Raven pointed out, patting him on the back.  Bellamy just groaned.

“I did sleep there.”

“Most people sleep in their beds the whole night,” Harper helpfully pointed out, and Bellamy lifted his head so she could see he was rolling his eyes.  The lights were too bright and hurt his head, but he wasn’t going to let them know.

“It’s a new recipe,” Monty said, putting a bowl in front of him.  “I think it should taste a little better.”

Bellamy nodded, and it took far more effort than it should have for him to lift his hand to grab his spoon.  The algae itself didn’t taste like much.  Maybe a little blander than the last.  He scooped another spoonful into his mouth, and was halfway done his bowl before he realized everyone was staring at him.

“What?”

“This is even worse than the last batch,” Monty said slowly, his brows creasing in concern.  “How are you eating it so fast?”

“Oh.”  Bellamy glanced back down at his bowl and moved another spoonful into his mouth.  Just as bland and tasteless as the last.  “It doesn’t taste like anything to me.”

Raven sighed.  “That’s because you haven’t slept since we were on the ground,” she pointed out softly, but didn’t press when Bellamy didn’t comment.

He was so tired.  He was fairly certain no one would mind if he just went back to bed.  But when he was able to sleep, it came with the nightmares, so he couldn’t bring himself to sleep more than he had to.

Breakfast finished without Bellamy noticing, and he only really became aware that everyone else had left when Raven tapped on his head.

“You good?” she asked, as Bellamy glanced around at the empty room.  He nodded, and then stared at the hand Raven held out to him.  “Come on.  I need help today.”

He let her help him to his feet, and was grateful that she didn’t say anything when he had to hold onto her for a moment while he regained his balance.

“What are you working on today?” he asked as they walked towards the control room.

“The radio,” she said, her words muffled around the hair tie she had between her lips, her hands busy working on pulling back her hair.  “I’m trying to get it working so maybe we can talk to the bunker.”

Bellamy nodded silently, the thought of articulating an actual response was far too exhausting to consider.  They entered the control room, and Bellamy stopped in the doorway, realizing there was no reason Raven should want his help.

“I have a job for you, Bellamy,” she told him, and Bellamy watched her skeptically as she pulled him into the room.  He let her move him and push him down into a chair.  “Sit here.  Try to get some sleep.”

Bellamy sighed.  “Raven—”

“Don’t _Raven_ me.”  She waved a finger in his face, her own pursed in concern.  “Bellamy, I’m worried about you.  We’re all worried.  There are so many things we need to address, but first you need to actually rest, okay?”

Bellamy opened his mouth to argue, to insist again that he was fine, but all that came out was a yawn.

Raven seemed to take that as validation of her point, and turned to move towards the radio.  “Stay there and don’t move, and please get some sleep.”

He wasn’t sure if he actually ever fell asleep or not, but time passed quicker than it probably should have, and then Raven was in front of him again, trying to catch his attention.

“Hey,” she said softly.  If Bellamy had had the energy, he would’ve been annoying that she was speaking to him like he was going to break.  If he was being honest, which he was really trying hard not to be, he would have to admit that he might have already broken.

“It’s lunchtime,” Raven continued, gripping his hands and pulling him to his feet.  “Let’s go get some food in you, okay?”

Bellamy followed behind like a zombie, and was able to make his words work when they were about halfway to the dining room.

“Did you get the radio working?”

Raven shrugged.  “I think our end is fried,” she said, sighing.  “It’s going to take a lot of work if we want to even have a chance of getting a message out, if it’s even possible to get past this mess at all.  But we might be able to receive something now.  Which we won’t know about unless someone’s trying to contact us, which they might not even be doing yet.”

Bellamy nodded along, the information leaving his head as soon as he heard it.  He wasn’t fine.  He really needed to get a full night’s sleep.

They were in the hallway one second and then seated at the table the next.  How they got there, Bellamy had no idea.  They could have teleported for all of the journey he remembered.

His bowl was full and then it was empty.  He was fairly certain he’d eaten the algae, if only because his stomach felt slightly less empty, but he didn’t remember eating it, couldn’t have told anyone the taste if he’d had a gun to his head.  This was getting bad.  He could admit that, if only to himself.

The others were talking, maybe even to him, but he couldn’t make out more than just the faint buzz of the words, couldn’t bring himself to care that he couldn’t.

Monty started clearing the table, and Bellamy forced himself to his feet to help.  They couldn’t know he was on the brink of passing out just from standing.  They couldn’t know that he wasn’t as fine as he said he was.

He piled Raven’s bowl into his own slowly, pretending that his vision wasn’t swirling, that her hand on his arm wasn’t the only thing keeping him standing, until the dizziness passed.  He’d barely turned around before the voice cut through, the words actually registering in his brain, sending the dishes clattering to the ground.

_“Hey, Bellamy.  It’s been 37 days since Praimfaya.”_

It was a little fuzzy, as if the connection wasn’t entirely perfect between the afterlife and the Ark, but it was her.

Great.  He was hallucinating now, too.  Bellamy squeezed his eyes shut, trying to force himself to breathe.  Maybe if he told himself enough that she wasn’t really there, he could block out her voice before she started accusing him of killing her.

If he hadn’t been so wrapped up in stopping himself from hearing Clarke, he would’ve noticed everyone else seemed to hear her voice too, frozen in whatever they were doing before her first words had crackled through the radio.

_“The burns are mostly gone now.  Murphy thinks they should be completely healed within the week.”_

“Holy shit,” Raven breathed, her hand grabbing Bellamy’s arm and gripping tightly.  “Clarke.”

Bellamy’s eyes shot open at that, jerking back around to look at Raven.  “You hear her, too?” he whispered, a thread of hope tugging at his chest that he was suddenly, desperately clinging to.  His vision was swimming again, partly from the tears that were gathering in his eyes, partly because he’d been standing too long.

Raven’s own eyes were wide as she stared back at him, her grip on his arm and the words that were still washing over him the only things anchoring him to reality.  She nodded, and it was like that was all he had been waiting for.  Whatever dam had been holding back his tears shattered, letting loose a sob that wracked his whole body.  Raven was suddenly standing, wrapping him in her arms and helping ease him to the ground when his legs gave out.

It was like whatever had been keeping him together, whatever part of him that insisted that everyone had to think he was fine, had vanished with that nod, with that confirmation, and Bellamy could feel himself fading into unconsciousness, Clarke’s crackling words mixing with his sobs and one loud, brilliant, amazing thought as the world turned black.

_She’s alive._

* * *

  _It’s been a long day without you, my friend_  
_And I’ll tell you all about it when I see you again_  
_We’ve come a long way from where we began_  
_Oh, I’ll tell you all about it when I see you again_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please come tell me in the comments the exact amount of hatred you now hold for me, and also any songs you think may fit this fic. Also leave some kudos if you want. No pressure. Maybe a little.
> 
> Also the joke, for anyone who hasn't seen Grey's Anatomy and thus doesn't get it, is that Dr. Burke and Jaha are played by the same actor
> 
> You can also come yell at me on Tumblr at probably-voldemort (don't forget the dash!)
> 
> I hope to get the next chapter up sooner than this one :)


	3. all the missing pieces of my heart

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Knock knock. Who's there? It's your girl with another update!!
> 
> With this chapter, we have officially finished what I had outlined into what was supposed to be chapter one. So you know. Good job sticking to the outline, Kee.
> 
> So this semester all I've got left are one essay and then finals. I've got the essay almost done (just need to write a conclusion and finish the intro) and then I need to start studying for finals, which I'm hoping will give me time to get a couple chapters done and saved for posting at later dates (ie when I'm in Mexico and will be getting drunk at 11am and reading for fun and flirting with hot snorkle guides and not writing). Anyway, that's the hope!
> 
> Speaking of chapters, there'll be a link at the end of the chapter to a poll. I will tell you what the poll is about when you reach it. Incentive for reading, if you need any.
> 
> Also, I've had Grey's Anatomy reruns playing in the background basically constantly for the last like month while I've been doing school work (I grew up with younger siblings who were super loud which means I can focus better with background noise) which has also been the inspiration for Clarke and Murphy's binge watching. (also the inspiration for a Bellarke fic I posted a couple weeks ago so definitely go to my page and check that out if you want EVEN MORE ANGST HECK YEAH) ((also if you're in the mood for some non-angst drunk fluff, go check out my third Bellarke fic inspired by Bruno Mars' song Marry You))
> 
> Again, my medical knowledge comes from quick Google searches and, you guessed it, excessive Grey's Anatomy binges, so this is a disclosure for the fact that it's definitely not all necessarily accurate. That being said, I personally am not bothered by the lack of accuracy, so if it bothers you, either try to ignore it or just stop reading. I don't have the time or the willpower to go back and fix inaccuracies, though, so there's not really any point in mentioning them to me if you notice them.
> 
> And now, without further ado, the show. Please enjoy :)

_Without you, I feel broke_  
_Like I’m half of a whole_  
_Without you, I’ve got no hand to hold_

* * *

  **39 APF**

Clarke and Murphy stared in horror at the TV as the credits rolled.

“What the shit?” Clarke hissed through her teeth, glancing over at Murphy.  “This isn’t—they can’t kill of Callie!”

“Why not?” Murphy asked.  “They kill off everyone else.”

He had a point, but the next episode hadn’t started yet and Clarke was going to riot if they killed off Dr. Callie fucking Torres.

“They can’t!” she insisted, gesturing at the TV with what was left of her sandwich.  “Her and Arizona just got back together, and she’s going to have her baby with Mark, and Arizona just proposed and she’s—what?”

Murphy had gone still beside her, his face paling.

“Clarke,” he whispered, staring at the screen as the next episode started up, Torres still lying on the hood of the car.  “Clarke, I can’t watch this.”

Clarke frowned at him but reached for the remote to pause the episode.  “Why not?” she asked.  “I feel like the shooting and the whole George thing was worse than this’ll be.”

Murphy shook his head, his hand stretching up to push back his hair.  “I can’t watch this if she dies,” he repeated, his voice cracking.

He didn’t expand, and Clarke glanced between him and the screen as she tried to work out what exactly was bothering him so much about this episode.

And then it hit her.

“She’s pregnant,” she whispered, nodding.  “Murphy—”

“Don’t.”  He cut her off, standing abruptly.  “I can’t watch this if she dies.  I’m going to get more snacks.”

Clarke stared after him for a moment, wondering if she should go after him.  On the one hand, what they were doing, bottling everything up, it wasn’t healthy.  But on the other hand, if she went after him and got him to talk, she’d have to open up in return.  She didn’t know if she could do that, talk about everything she’d done, everyone she’d killed, the memories that woke her up in the middle of the night.

So she sat there, staring at the TV for far too long.

She flicked out of the episode after a while, deciding possible spoilers were more than worth the risk to see if they should skip this episode, and had it queued up again well before Murphy returned.

When he did come back, it was over half an hour later with red eyes and a lack of snacks that she didn’t mention.

“She doesn’t die,” she told him, watching as he carefully sat back on the couch.  “She gets married to Arizona in, like, two episodes, so she doesn’t die.  And her baby is in one of the pictures for another episode, so the baby doesn’t die either.”  She paused, waiting, but Murphy didn’t say anything.  “If you still don’t want to watch, we can watch something else.”

He still didn’t answer, and Clarke ended up clicking out of the episode and turning on some comedy about a guy who turned into a dog that she couldn’t have given the plot of if she’d had a gun to her head.

*********

Murphy stared at the ceiling, or, rather, in the direction of the ceiling.  It was too dark to really see it, so he was really staring into nothing.

Clarke sighed again in the darkness, flipping over for the hundredth time.  If Murphy had actually been trying to fall asleep, he would’ve been annoyed, but, as it was, he wasn’t sure he’d sleep anytime soon either.

He was trying not to think about anything, which was harder than it seemed.  There were a million thoughts swirling in his head, fighting for attention, and he didn’t want to listen to any of them.

Clarke’s flopping and sighing was actually good.  It gave him something else to focus on, something other than Emori, being choked by a Grounder or lying, bloody and dying, on the hood of a car.

So he worried about Clarke, about how she still wasn’t completely healthy yet, how not sleeping wasn’t going to do any good.  He worried about whether someone else was alive on this godforsaken planet, whether they’d come in and attack and kill them before they could get to their guns because after the third time one of them had pulled their gun from under their pillow while caught up in a nightmare and managed to fire a shot, they’d silently decided to store them under the sink in the bathroom.

And, between worrying about things that should actually be worried about, in the silence where the unwanted thoughts and the beginnings of nightmares lurked, he sung to himself.

_One hundred bottles of beer on the wall, one hundred bottles of beer..._

Clarke rolled over again, and he contemplated rolling over and wrapping her in his arms.  They hadn’t done it since that one night, but it had been the best sleep he could remember getting in a while.  He was sure Clarke wouldn’t mind.

_...you take one down and pass it around, eighty six bottles of beer on the wall.  Eighty six bottles of beer on the wall..._

Clarke tossed and turned again and again, and Murphy reached seventeen bottles of beer before she spoke.

“We should talk.”

Murphy sighed, not bothering to face her.  He could tell she was staring up, too, that she wasn’t looking at him.

“We should sleep,” he pointed out.

“And neither of us are doing that,” she countered.

Murphy stayed silent again, counting down to nine bottles before he decided that silence was worse than talking.

“Talk about what?”

Clarke was silent for a bit longer, and Murphy finished the bottles and started putting them back up.  He wasn’t sure whether that was really how the song worked, but he also didn’t care.

“Everything,” Clarke finally whispered, the word settling into him with the weight it seemed to take for her to say it.  “It’s supposed to be healthy to talk about things that happened, and we just don’t.”

Murphy didn’t say anything.  He didn’t care how healthy it might be to talk, he didn’t want to.  Talking meant reliving everything that had happed since they came to the ground, everything that happened before.  Talking meant admitting to things he didn’t want to admit to, accepting things he wasn’t ready to accept.

Clarke, however, seemed to take his silence as an agreement.

“I guess I can go first.”  She sighed, and Murphy closed his eyes, unable to watch her outline in his peripheral vision as he listened to whatever she’d decided to talk about.

It took a few long moments before she’d gathered herself enough to say the words, her voice barely a whisper even then.

“I’m in love with him.”  Murphy couldn’t help opening his eyes, risking a peek in her direction only to find her still staring up at the ceiling.  “Bellamy.  I’m in love with Bellamy, and I never told him because everyone I love dies, and I couldn’t lose him, too.”

Murphy sighed into the quiet, relieved that she wasn’t going too deep right away.  “I know,” he said, and she turned her head to stare at him.  “You guys have never exactly been subtle.  Everyone had called it from the beginning of your feud at the Dropship.”

Clarke huffed out a laugh.  “Well, it took us a little longer than that to figure it out,” she told him, and Murphy wondered exactly when they did figure it out.  “More than a little.  It took us too long.”  She sighed, looking up again.  “And now he’s gone.”

Murphy reached across the space between them, grabbing her hand and squeezing it.  “He’s coming back,” he reminded her, and Clarke just nodded.

“I know.”

She didn’t continue after that, and Murphy figured that was all the talking they were doing for the night.

It wasn’t that bad.  He didn’t have to share anything too deep, didn’t have to discuss the deeper parts in more detail than he wanted.  He could do this.

The weight of Clarke’s hand still in his was what did it for him, made him decide to say something in return.  He didn’t know what, though.  Maybe how scared he was back at the Dropship, how acting tough and following Bellamy’s every word was all in a hopes to hide his fear.

Maybe something lighter than that.  Maybe remind her about the time he kissed Monroe when he was fourteen at Miller’s birthday party after Harper had dared him, how he’d sworn up and down that it wasn’t his first kiss.  Maybe he’d confess that he’d lied.

Yeah.  That was good.  That was something.  Say something to remind them that things weren’t always this difficult, that life wasn’t always this shitty, and then see if she wants to cuddle and maybe actually get some sleep.

That was what he’d meant to say, but it wasn’t what came out.

“Max.”

The name was a whisper, falling off his tongue for the first time since Emori had died, their son with her.  He closed his eyes against the tears that were suddenly burning, against Clarke’s gaze as the bed rustled as she turned his way.

He sighed, squeezing her hand again.

“We were gonna name him Max.”

They lay there in silence again for a few moments, and Clarke squeezed his hand back.

“I like that name,” she told him, her voice soft as it floated through the darkness.

He opened his eyes again, turning to look at her.  “Yeah?”

She nodded.  “Yeah.”

He let out a breath, suddenly exhausted, and scooted closer to her.  “Can I...?”  Clarke nodded again, and he fit himself behind her, wrapping her in his arms.  It didn’t take long for Murphy to fall asleep after that, and Clarke was already snoring against him.

 

**42 APF**

It was just a little, just a tidbit here and there, but it helped.  Clarke would mention how she buried everyone at Mount Weather and how even that did nothing to curb the guilt she felt while they were making pasta.  Murphy would tell her how his mother hated him from the moment his father stole the flu shots until she died of cancer for not helping him know what to steal as he drew Clarkes blood to check how she was healing.

They didn’t talk about what they shared, didn’t question it anymore than they willingly gave up, but it still helped.  Having someone else know what they’d gone through was enough, for right now at least.

Clarke flopped down on the couch next to Murphy, handing him the bowl of chips so she could pull the blankets over herself.

“So, I was thinking we could watch Mamma Mia!” she said, scrolling through the TV for the show.  “It looks like it’ll be funny, and it’s a musical.”

Murphy groaned, and Clarke huffed out a laugh.  He claimed to hate musicals, but she would swear she heard him singing We’re All In This Together in the shower this morning.  He had been way too invested in Troy and Gabriella’s relationship the day before to hate musicals as much as he said he did.

“Actually,” he said, as she found the title and was about to click it.  “Do you want to continue Grey’s Anatomy?”

Clarke paused, resisting the urge to look over at him.  They hadn’t watched it since the car crash a few days before, and Clarke had been supressing her need to continue watching the insane drama of this fictional hospital.  They’d stuck to movies since then, comedies, things that shouldn’t trigger them.

“You sure?” she asked, finally turning to look at him.

“Yeah.”  Murphy offered her a grin that didn’t reach his eyes.  “You said Callie doesn’t die, right?  I’ll be fine.  Plus I’ve got dish duty riding on Karev getting chief resident, so we can’t not watch it.”

Clarke smiled back at him.  “It’s going to be Meredith,” she assured him, turning back to the TV.  “So get ready to wash all the dishes for a month.”  She hovered over the icon, not pressing play quite yet.  “Let me know if we need to stop it.  I don’t mind.”

“Thanks.”  Murphy bumped her shoulder with his.  “Now, quit stalling so we can watch this.”

She stole glances at him in the first two minutes, at the way he clutched the chip bowl so tightly his knuckles were white, at the way he tensed when Sloan asked about the Torres and the baby.  She went to pause it, but he waved her off.

She didn’t really believe him until Callie started singing, and he let out a loud groan.

“Why the fuck is this a musical?”

Clarke let out a sigh of relief at the way he relaxed, like the singing was all that was needed to calm him down.

They could do this.  They could talk through their shit and get past it and be better.  They could do this.

“What are you doing?”  Clarke frowned as Murphy reached forward, picking the remote up off the coffee table.

“Turning on the subtitles,” he grumbled, pausing the episode as he flicked through the options.  “We’re gonna have to sing along.”

Clarke hid her grin in a handful of chips.  Yeah, they were going to be fine.

 

**24 BPF**

“Are you sure this works?” Emori asked, following behind as Murphy snuck them into the lab.

“Of course it works,” Murphy assured her, pausing to peek around the corner.  “I’m a doctor, remember?  I know these things.”

“I’m pretty sure that story ended with you getting arrested before you finished medical school,” Emori pointed out, and Murphy glanced over at her.  He could see how nervous she was, her good hand twisting at the wrappings on the other, her eyes darting around as if someone was going to jump out and attack them at any moment.

He reached out and grabbed her hands, smiling softly at her.  “Emori,” he said, and she glanced up at him.  “Trust me, okay?”

Emori nodded and Murphy squeezed her hands one last time before turning to glance into the lab once more.  “Okay,” he said.  “It looks like Abby finally got Raven to take a nap, so we should have enough time.”

He tugged Emori behind him and gestured at the table for her to lie down as he started darting around the equipment.

“What is this thing again?” she asked, watching as Murphy set things up.

“It’s an ultrasound,” Murphy said, bending down to plug in a cord.  “There’s a little wand that I put on your stomach and it does some science-y thing with soundwaves we can’t hear to see the baby, and then we get to see what it sees on the screen.”

“Echolocation,” Emori murmured.  “Like a bat.  We’re going to use a bat machine to see our baby.”

Murphy glanced up at her and matched her grin.  “Exactly,” he agreed.  He fiddled around a bit more until he was pretty sure the ultrasound was hooked up correctly, and silently thanked Abby that ultrasounds were one of the first things they learned to use in med school.

_“It’s hard for us to kill someone with an ultrasound machine,”_ thirteen year old Clarke had told him when he’d questioned why they were doing that on their third week.  Her point had seemed fair then and still seemed fair now.

“Ready,” he said, pulling a bottle of goop off the counter.  Emori raised her shirt and he squirted a glob onto her stomach.

“Alright,” he told her, moving the wand around.  “It’s been a while since I’ve used one of these, so it might take a minute.”

He manipulated the wand for a few moments, swiping it over her stomach as he stared at the monitor.

“There!” he said, freezing his hand, a grin spreading across his face.  “That’s our baby, Emori.”

He turned back to look at her, tears already in his eyes.

“Is that it’s arm?” she asked, staring in awe at the screen, and Murphy nodded.

“And if we move it this way a little,” he said, tilting the wand a bit.  He broke off with a gasp, his eyes locked on the face of his child.

“Oh,” Emori said, and Murphy turned her way, wiping the tears from his eyes.  Her hands hovered above her stomach, as though she wanted to reach out and touch their baby but wasn’t sure if she’d mess up the picture.

“It gets better,” he whispered, guiding her hand to the wand.  “Hold this here for a sec.”

Emori complied, her eyes still trained on their baby’s face, and Murphy moved to look on the monitor for the volume switch.  He turned it on, and had to close his eyes as a wave of emotion took over him.

“What’s that?” Emori asked, her voice a whisper.

Murphy took a deep breath, opening his eyes as he turned to grin at her.  “It’s heartbeat.”

It took a few minutes, but Murphy stopped crying enough to start taking pictures.  The art of ultrasound was apparently like riding a bicycle supposedly was, and he made his way through the mental list of pictures and measurements he had to take.  From the size of the baby and the fact that Emori had been feeling kicks for a week or so, he’d place it at about twenty to twenty five weeks, a little over halfway along.  And it was a boy.  He could tell that, too.

He paused for a moment, watching the screen as the baby turned over, and Emori’s hand shot into his peripheral vision.  He grabbed it with his free one, squeezing it tight.

“Well, this looks cozy.”

Murphy jumped, dropping Emori’s hand and the wand as he reached for the gun on his belt.

“It’s just me,” Roan said, walking further into the room with his hands raised.  “Don’t shoot.”

Murphy replaced his gun, but didn’t relax.  “What are you doing, Roan?”

Roan shrugged, reaching them and leaning back against a machine.  “I heard noises and wanted to make sure no one had broken in.”  He pulled a sword from his belt and poked at the screen with it.  “I think the better question would be what are _you_ doing?”

Emori had sat up by that point, tugging her shirt back down and wiping the goop off her stomach with the towel they’d brought down.  “Roan—”

“No, actually, I want to guess.  That”—Roan tapped the screen with his sword again—“looked like a face.  And I have no idea what this machine is or what it does, but I’m pretty sure the face came from that”—he swung the sword around, tapping at the ultrasound wand that still lay on the table—“which means that that face is in your stomach, probably attached to a body.  So either you eat small people and swallow them whole, or you’re pregnant.”

Murphy pushed the sword away before it could wreck the equipment or poke at something more important, say, for example, one of them.  “Roan—”

Roan grinned at them, sliding the sword back into its holster.  “Don’t worry,” he assured them, or, at least, Murphy assumed it was meant to be reassuring.  Nothing about Roan was really ever reassuring, though.  “I’m not going to tell anyone.  All I ask in return is you name him after me.”

 

**50 APF**

Bellamy woke slowly, feeling groggy and overtired but a lot better than he’d felt in a long time.  He rubbed the sleep from his eyes, grimacing as he got a whiff of how badly he smelled as his arm moved.  How long had it been since he’d showered?

That was his first stop, his mind blissfully blank as he let the water wash over him.  It was over too soon for his liking, though, as Monty had rigged the shower to shut off after seven minutes.  Rationing sucked, but it was something they were all too familiar with.

His clothes smelled, but it wasn’t like he had options.  There wasn’t a washing machine on what was left of the Ark, and they hadn’t thought to pack extra clothes when they left.  There were a bunch of spare sheets that he’d been meaning to turn into spare clothes, but he hadn’t gotten around to it.

So he was stuck being clean in smelly clothes.  There were worse things.

The halls were empty as he made his way through them, and so was the kitchen.  What time was it?  He didn’t know.  Was it day?  Was it night?  Did it matter?

Raven was in the control room when he looked in, and she glanced up as he walked over.

“Wow.”  She was grinning, her eyebrows raised.  “Am I dreaming or do you actually seem lucid?”

Bellamy rolled his eyes and sunk into the seat next to her.  “It’s only been a few days,” he pointed out.

Raven’s grin dropped and she frowned at him.  “Since what?”

“Since we got Clarke’s call.”  Bellamy’s brows drew together, as a terrible thought hit him.  “That happened, right?  I didn’t dream that?”

“No, it happened.”  Raven’s frown didn’t loosen, and she put down whatever it was she was working on.  “Do you mean the first time?  That’s was almost two weeks ago, Bellamy, not a few days.”

Bellamy stared at her.  It couldn’t have been that long.  He’d have known if it had been weeks, wouldn’t he?

He remembered hearing Clarke’s voice, remembered Raven confirming that it was real, that Clarke was actually alive, and then it was fuzzy.  He remembered bits of conversation, of being led to the bathroom.  He remembered Monty feeding him the algae because his own hands refused to cooperate.  He’d been sick, sure, but two weeks?

“That’s not—” He broke off, a thought striking him.  “Has she called again?”

Raven nodded, standing up to walk to a table that was covered in parts.  “Every day, at least once,” she told him, and Bellamy felt a mixture of relief and despair.  Relief that he’d hear her voice again and soon, but despair in that he’d missed two weeks of hearing her.

“Here.” Raven dropped something in his lap and continued on whatever she was working on.

Bellamy glanced down at the tablet, flipping it over.  “What’s this for?”

“Monty figured out how to get them to save as they come in.  They’re all on that” she told him, and the tablet in his hands seemed to gain a lot of weight.  “We can’t figure out how to make them just transmit in one place, though.  The wiring in here’s complete shit since they brought the rest of the Ark down.  It’s a mess.  So we all get to hear everything she says everywhere until I can figure out how to fix it.”

Bellamy wasn’t listening.  He’d turned on the tablet and started scrolling through a list of files, each marked with the date they came in.  He looked back up at Raven, trying to figure out what she was working on.

“Do you—?”

“Go.”  She waved him off.  “Listen to your girlfriend.  Dinner’ll be in a couple hours, though, and I expect you to eat.”

Bellamy nodded, already forgetting what he’d heard as he hurried from the room and back to his bedroom.  He settled onto his bed and tapped on the first message with a shaky finger, everything he’d bottled up since they left Earth coming out in a sob at the sound of her voice.

_“Hey, Bellamy.  It’s been 41 days since Praimfaya.  We’re still alive, and I’m still waiting for you, okay?  Have you heard of High School Musical?  Obviously you haven’t, what am I saying?  You’re lucky, honestly, because that also means you haven’t had to hear Murphy sing Bop To The Top while cooking dinner.  Ugh, I wish I could unhear it.  Apocalypses should really come with singing lessons.”_

 

**63 APF**

Clarke felt like shit.  She’d been trying to hide it since the puking had started about a week ago, hoping it was just something she ate, maybe, or some virus, but it had been getting worse.

She was exhausted all the time.  The vomiting came on at random times with barely enough warning for her to get far enough from Murphy that he wouldn’t notice.  Her whole body ached.

It wasn’t as bad as when she’d first woken from her coma, that was for sure, which made it difficult for her to accept that this might just be something leftover from the radiation.  And if this did end up being because of the radiation, that meant it might not be something they could fix.

She couldn’t die.  She couldn’t do that to Murphy, for one, and she had to be alive in five years to see Bellamy again, for another.  She couldn’t die.

So she had to believe this was something else, a virus or a flu or food poisoning or something else that they could deal with.  And, in order to believe that, Murphy couldn’t know she was sick.  Because Murphy knowing she was sick meant he’d want to make her not sick, which would mean running tests and finding out exactly what was wrong with her and having to actually face it.

So he wasn’t going to find out and this was going to pass and she would get better.

She was half dozing to a filler episode of Grey’s, relatively certain that she wouldn’t miss anything too important if she took a little nap.  Her head rested on a pillow in Murphy’s lap, his fingers absently running through her hair, and she was so tired and it felt so nice, so soothing, and she felt her eyelids droop further and further—

—until her stomach swooped and she couldn’t dart forward far enough fast enough to avoid puking down Murphy’s legs.

_“Shit!”_

Murphy pulled her hair back from her face as she heaved, and she pressed her cheek against his knee when she was finished, breathing heavily.

“Finished?” Murphy asked, and Clarke nodded against him.  The feeling had passed, and, if pattern held, wouldn’t return for a few hours. 

He pushed on her shoulder and she sat up, glancing his way with tired eyes.  She sat there as he grimaced at his legs before staring at her, reaching up a hand to brush it against her forehead.

“You don’t have a fever,” he told her, and Clarke shook her head.  Murphy sighed and stood.  “I’m going to change my pants.”

She watched him as he left, and then went to the kitchen where the disinfectant was and set about cleaning up her vomit and trying not to think about the fact that now Murphy knew something was wrong with her.

Maybe he’d write it off.  Maybe he wouldn’t want to know what was causing this.  Maybe he’d be as happy as she was with just pretending it would pass, that she’d be fine, that this was nothing serious.

She really should’ve known better.

“Drink this.”

She’d just finished cleaning when he returned, shoving a glass of water into her face.  She accepted it and drank slowly, trying to postpone the inevitable moment when he’d want to talk about it.

Unfortunately, a glass of water only goes so far before it’s empty.

“I’m fine,” she insisted, before he could even attempt to say anything to the contrary.

Murphy rolled his eyes so hard she could hear it, and sighed.  “You’re clearly not fine,” he told her.  “People who are fine don’t just randomly puke.”

She was too tired to argue—not to mention he had a point.  People who were fine _didn’t_ just randomly puke—so instead she just sighed again, leaning back against the couch.

“Eight days,” she supplied, knowing he was about to start grilling her.  “Besides the puking, I’ve been tired, but that’s it.”

“Jesus, Clarke.”  Murphy leveled her with a glare.  “Why the fuck would you keep this to yourself for eight days?”

Clarke rolled her eyes.  “Don’t pretend you wouldn’t do the same.”

Murphy didn’t say anything, just grabbed the remote and jabbed the pause button with far more force than necessary.  Then he stood and left the room, leaving Clarke blinking in surprise after him. 

She shouldn’t have been so shocked, however, when he returned a few moments later with a tablet, a needle, and a tray full of vials.

“Give me your arm,” he instructed, sitting back on the couch and pulling on a pair of gloves.

Clarke sighed and crossed her arms over herself.  “Murphy, no.”

He ignored her, going about organizing his phlebotomy supplies in silence.  When he was done, he looked at her, holding out his hand.

“It’s not up for discussion,” he told her.  “Give me your arm.”

Clarke held her arms tighter to her chest.  “If we know, we’re going to have to deal with it,” she pointed out.  “What if it’s something bad?”

“Then we’ll deal with it.”  Murphy waved his hand in front of her.  “Come on, Clarke.  You’re being an idiot.  Don’t pretend you wouldn’t do the same if it were me.”

Clarke held her ground for a moment longer before giving up with a sigh.  She knew Murphy wouldn’t give in anytime soon because, as he’d said, there was no way she’d be giving in ever if their positions were reversed.  And besides, she was really tired.  If she tried to take a nap before letting Murphy take her blood, he’d just take it while she was sleeping.  It’s what she would’ve done.

“Fine,” she told him, thrusting out her arm.  She watched as he disinfected the inside of her elbow and then slid the needle into her vein.  “What are you testing for?”

“Everything.”  Murphy paused as he switched to a new vial.  “I’ve only been testing what the computer suggested.  We might’ve missed something.  So I’m gonna run every test we’ve got.”

*********

Clarke was so tired.  She had been tired before, but then Murphy took twenty six vials of her blood, and even the energy drinks he kept thrusting at her weren’t doing their job to keep her fully conscious.

They were watching Grey’s again, or, at least, Murphy was watching Grey’s and Clarke was trying to stay awake long enough for the results.  There were machines for checking the blood, which was good because they hadn’t gotten to that part of med school yet when they’d gotten arrested.

So she was half-napping and hoping the results would show she had a stomach flu or food poisoning or something else that was relatively easy to treat.

The tablet dinged from it’s place on the coffee table, startling Clarke out of her doze.  She reached out quickly to grab it, but, unfortunately, Murphy was faster.

“Let me read it,” she insisted, but he shook his head, standing up and holding it out of her reach.

“If you read it, you’re going to ignore whatever’s wrong,” he pointed out, which, fair.  Clarke rolled her eyes and slumped back against the couch.

“Fine,” she allowed, crossing her arms and not caring that her pout made her look like a spoiled toddler.  “Read it.  But I get to read it after.”

Murphy lowered the tablet, keeping an eye on her in case she was going to make another go for it, and then started pacing the room as he read.  A few of her vitamins were off, which could be easily solved by the storage room of supplements they’d found, but didn’t explain her symptoms.  Generally, everything seemed to be normal from what Murphy chose to share out loud.

He looked just as confused as she felt, and she was about to tell him she knew this was a waste of time when he froze.  Her stomach dropped as he paled, his face as white as a ghost.

“What is it?” she asked, fear creeping up her spine.  “What did you find?”

He didn’t look at her as he turned off the tablet.  He didn’t look at her as he tossed it onto the couch and pulled her up.

“Murphy, what is it?” she asked again, pleading for him to tell him anything.  She was dying.  She was going to die, and he couldn’t even tell her why.

“Come on,” was all he said, tugging her after him as he left the room.

She trailed behind him, matching his quick pace as he pulled her into the lab, the weight that was settling in her gut preventing her from saying anything, from demanding to know what he’d found.

“Sit,” he told her, pointing at the table in the middle of the lab and then moving to look at some machines.

Clarke obeyed, wondering what kind of horrific results he’d found that needed immediate further testing.  He told her to lift her shirt and she did so absently, her mind swirling with too much worry and fear to question him.

He returned a minute later, and she startled as a glob of warm goop hit her lower stomach.

“Murphy,” she said again, watching him turn on the ultrasound.  A new possibility was fighting to be heard over the more terrifying.  “Murphy, what did the results say?”

He didn’t answer, didn’t look at her, just stared at the screen as he moved the wand around on her abdomen.

“There,” he finally said, pressing a button to take a picture.  He dropped the wand on the table beside her and pointed at the screen.

Clarke stared in silence for a few minutes, a multitude of emotions swimming within her as she stared at the picture.

“That’s...  I’m...” She trailed off, unable to finish.

“You’re pregnant,” Murphy finished for her, his face unreadable as he stared at the screen, refusing to look at her.  He suddenly turned, bumping into the table in his haste to get away.  “I need to start dinner.”

Clarke watched him leave for a moment before her gaze moved to the goop still on her belly, and then to the picture still taking up the screen.  It looked like a baby shaped alien, with a head and arms and legs that were all out of proportion, but there was no denying what it was.

She was pregnant.

Holy shit.  She was _pregnant._

Her stomach lurched, and she turned away, emptying what was left in it onto the floor.

* * *

_Without you, I feel torn, like a sail in a storm_  
_Without you, I’m just a sad song_  
_I’m just a sad song_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dun dun DUHHHHHHH!!!!
> 
> As promised, [here is a poll!](https://linkto.run/p/INH1FE7B) What is this poll about, you ask? I have an outline for this fic. It's currently at 27 chapters. Now, each of these chapters can be ~10k ish, as has been demonstrated by chapter two. Actually, if I'm being honest, everything that's been posted so far was originally supposed to be in chapter one. Yeah. So here's where we're at: I can continue following (or trying to) my outlines for each chapter. This would mean updates are more sporadic and more dependent on me having a lot of time to write, but they will be hella long (remember: these three chapters were all supposed to be chapter one). OR I could find spaces within these chapters that would make sense to end a chapter at and make each original chapter into a few smaller ones. This would mean shorter chapters (~5k, approximately) but theoretically they'll be posted more frequently, as they would take less time to write.
> 
> So the poll is basically asking what you'd prefer. I'll keep it open until next Wednesday ish (aka the 12th) unless it's showing a big preference towards one or the other before then, and I'll let you know on my Tumblr and then again at the start of the next chapter what the results were!
> 
> ALSO! Don't forget to go check out the playlist for this fic! Link is at the start of chapter 2, and a few new songs have been added since the last update!
> 
> Please go vote! Also comments and kudos feed and water my anteater farm, so please don't let them starve!
> 
> Come follow me on Tumblr at probably-voldemort!
> 
> Thanks for reading! :)


	4. i'll give you nothing but truth

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Surprise! You didn't have to wait another month for this update!
> 
> So first things first, the poll has been holding pretty steadily at 70% ish for quicker, shorter updates and 30% ish for longer less frequent updates. I've split the chapters into places where I think it'll work to make the new chapters, and right now it's looking like this fic will be 36 chapters. That's not a definite number there cause like it's definitely possible that I'll have to further split up these chapters but that at least gives you an idea.
> 
> Also! The plan is to update once a week. Updates right now will be Wednesdays, but that could change. I'll keep you updated on that. So far, I have most of next week's written, and I'm hoping to get another two chapters written before I leave for Mexico so that I'll have an update covered for that week as well as the week after I get back. 
> 
> This update schedule might change once I get back to uni again in January but we'll see how it goes.
> 
> Anywho, two more finals left and then I'm free!
> 
> Final warning: The angst is strong in this one, so please keep your hands inside the ride at all times

_Oh you're just a small bump unknown_  
_You'll grow into your skin_  
_With a smile like hers_  
_And a dimple beneath your chin_

* * *

**63 APF**

Murphy was in the kitchen when Clarke found him a half hour or so after he’d left, but he wasn’t making dinner.  His hands were gripping the counter, knuckles white, and he was staring down at the floor.

“Hey,” she called softly, crossing the room  to perch on one of the barstools.

He flinched at the sound of her voice, but turned towards the fridge instead of looking at her.  “Hey,” he answered, his voice raw, and Clarke swallowed heavily.

“Are you okay?” she asked, and he gave a harsh laugh.

“I should be asking you that,” he pointed out, head in the fridge.  “I’m not the one who’s...” 

He trailed off with a sigh, and Clarke studied him in silence for a few moments before he turned around.  His eyes were red and swollen, and he stared at her with an open mouth until he could speak.

“I’m sorry,” he finally told her, staring back down at the counter.  “That wasn’t... I don’t... I’m sorry.  That was a shitty reaction.  I just...”

“I know.”  Clarke reached across the counter to grab one of his hands, squeezing it tight.  “I get it.”

Murphy nodded, but didn’t look up.  “What do you want to do?” he asked her quietly.  “We can probably find something in the computers to abort it, if that’s what you want.”

“No.”  Clarke squeezed his hand again, and he finally looked at her.  “I want it.  I want this baby.  It’s probably a shitty time to have a baby, what with the apocalypse and all, but it’s...  Bellamy’s not coming back for five years.  This baby...it’s...”

“I get it.”  Murphy squeezed her hand back, having flipped his own over underneath it.  “We should finish that ultrasound, then.”

He didn’t move to do so, and Clarke considered him for a long moment, how pale he still was, the tremor in his hand where it was gripped in hers, and shook her head.

“It can wait,” she declared, hopping off her stool to rummage in the cupboards.  Murphy made a half-hearted sound of protest, and Clarke shook her head again as she pulled out a box of pasta.  “Seriously, Murphy.  We know the puking is morning sickness now, and we can deal with that.  Bellamy and I only...there was only one night, so we can easily figure out how far along I am.  We don’t _need_ an ultrasound immediately.  It can wait until you’re ready to talk about.”

Murphy didn’t say anything, but he was slightly more relaxed when she handed him the pasta.  Clarke pulled a hair tie off her wrist to pull her hair up on her head.

“I’m thinking spaghetti.”

 

**67 APF**

Murphy flopped onto the couch with a box of Oreos, holding the open package to Clarke.

“So,” he said, raising an eyebrow as she filled her hands with cookies.  “We’re having a baby.”

Clarke side eyed him and took a final cookie.  “You mean _I’m_ having a baby,” she told him carefully.  “You had no part in this baby at all.”

“Clarke.”  Murphy poked her in the nose with his cookie.  “We are literally the only two people on the surface of this planet.  If you think I’m having no part in this baby, you’re insane.”

“Technically, we’re not on the surface,” Clarke pointed out, or, at least, that’s what Murphy thought she said.  It was kind of hard to tell around the four cookies she’d shoved in her mouth.

“Not the point.”  Murphy made a show of pausing while he ate his cookie like a civilized human being, and Clarke rolled her eyes.  “I’m here, Clarke.  I’m not going anywhere, and I’m going to help you with this baby whether you like it or not.”

Clarke laughed and bumped her shoulder against his.  “Thanks,” she said, and Murphy nodded at her.  “You’re okay, then?”

Was he okay?  In general, probably not, but they were working on it.  In regards to Clarke being pregnant?

Clarke being pregnant made him think of Emori being pregnant, about how he’d lost her and their son, and thinking about any of that was generally not a good idea.  But there wasn’t any way he’d make Clarke go through pregnancy and labour without at least acknowledging it—and, let’s be real, there’s no way he’d let her go through any of that without being an active part of it when they were the only two people here.  He wasn’t that much of a dick—and after that there would be a baby.  Even if he was enough of a dick to ignore her pregnancy, there was no way anyone could just pretend a baby didn’t exist.

So, no, he wasn’t okay, but he was going to be.  He was going to be okay for Clarke and her baby, because they deserved someone who was okay.  Honestly, they deserved someone who was more than okay, but right now okay was enough of a stretch for him to aim for.

“I will be,” he told her, and Clarke nodded.  “You can start it.”

Clarke groaned but pointed the remote at the TV.  “Do we have to?” she whined.  “Like I love it, but Ross and Rachel are terrible together.  Can’t we just rewatch Grey’s Anatomy.”

Murphy snorted.  “I’m pretty sure you’re the one who said we should watch more than just one TV show,” he reminded her.  “But there’s no way Ross and Rachel are endgame.”

“If you’re wrong, I’m going to destroy you,” Clarke threatened, and Murphy laughed as the episode started up.

********* 

“You’re sure you’re fine with this?”

Murphy sighed, fiddling with the dials on the ultrasound machine.  “I’m sure,” he said.  “Like I’ve told you the other three hundred times you asked.”

Clarke bit her lip to resist the urge to ask once more, to confirm that he was okay with it.  It wasn’t like she was in a hurry for another ultrasound.  It wasn’t like the baby was going to come tomorrow.  It wasn’t like this was urgent.  She could wait another few days, another few weeks, if it would make Murphy more comfortable.

He turned around, gesturing at her with the bottle of goop.  “Lift up your shirt.”

Clarke rolled her eyes but complied.  “You should at least buy me dinner first.”

“What do you think I do every night?” Murphy punctuated his point with a gulp of warm goop hitting her stomach.  “You said you and Bellamy hooked up when you and Bellamy were here, right?  That gives you a little over twenty weeks or so before I’ll be seeing a lot more than just your stomach.”

Clarke grimaced at the thought of labour, of actually having to deliver this baby, and tried to come up with some other retort to counter Murphy’s disturbingly valid point.

She was saved by Murphy pressing the wand to her stomach, and her eyes were suddenly trained with his on the screen.

He caught her looking and offered half a grin.  “Hold this,” he told her, even though the baby wasn’t even showing up on the screen yet.  “This is the best part.”

She took the wand from him and awkwardly tried to move it so they could see the baby.  She’d never tried to give herself an ultrasound while laying down, and she did not recommend it.

“What are you doing?” she asked, and Murphy turned away from the machine to grin at her.

“Listen.”

The tears sprung to her eyes the moment the heartbeat sounded, and Clarke didn’t know why she was crying.  It was the hormones, probably.  Pregnancy came with weird hormones that made you cry.  She sniffed and reached up with the hand that wasn’t holding the wand to wipe away her tears.

Murphy hadn’t said anything, and, as soon as she had stopped crying enough to see, she looked away from the screen that still wasn’t showing anything.

He was standing there, his eyes closed and a hand tightly fisted in his hair, tears streaming down his cheeks.

“Murphy,” she called, reaching out for him.  She ignored the part of her that mourned the loss of the heartbeat as she dropped the wand.

“I’m good.”  Murphy didn’t open his eyes, turning away from her.  “I just need a minute.  It’s...it’s a lot.”

“Okay.”  Clarke lay back on the table, staring up at the ceiling.  A part of her wanted to press the wand to her abdomen again, to hear the heartbeat, but she brushed that part off.  She could live without hearing the baby’s heartbeat if it was going to trigger Murphy like this.

Murphy was back a few minutes later, and neither mentioned his red eyes or the way he switched off the volume before continuing with the ultrasound.

*********

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“Not really.”  Murphy sighed into Clarke’s hair, his arms tightening around her.  He felt Clarke nod, not pushing it.  They never pushed it, even when they probably should.

They lay there in the dark for a while, Murphy’s brain working a mile a minute.

“I miss her,” he whispered, closing his eyes.  “I miss her so much, Clarke.”

“I know.”  Clarke moved in his arms, and it took him a moment to realize she was turning around to hold him back and not moving away.

He couldn’t say anything else, couldn’t tell Clarke how every little thing reminded him of Emori, how it’d been 67 days since she’d died and he still didn’t know how he was supposed to live without her.  He couldn’t tell her how her being pregnant made it impossible not to think about his son, how much it killed him that Clarke would actually get to hold her child one day when he wouldn’t have that chance.

So he said nothing and buried his face in her neck and tried not to cry.

“Is there anything you want to talk about?” he asked, once the tears had stopped threatening to fall.

Clarke shrugged as she shifted into a comfier position.  “I really want meat and I think it’s at least partly a demand from the baby?”

Murphy cursed the darkness and how it hid his eyeroll from her, no matter how obvious he tried to make it.

“Is that really what you want to talk about?” he pressed.  “There’s nothing else?”

Clarke pushed herself up to stare in confusion at him for a moment.  He watched as understanding dawned on her, and she rolled herself to face away from him.

“Nothing?”  He’d feel bad about pressuring her to talk if he really thought not talking would help in this case.  “Don’t you want to talk about the fact that you still haven’t told Bellamy?”

When Clarke didn’t immediately jump to correct him, he knew his hunch was right.  He didn’t mean to eavesdrop on her radio messages, but the lab wasn’t that big.  It wasn’t difficult to deduce from her ramblings of the past few days that she still hadn’t said anything.

She didn’t say anything now, either, for long enough that Murphy assumed that was the end of the conversation.  But then her answer came in a small whisper:

“No.”

Murphy wanted to push, but held himself back.  She hadn’t pushed him to talk, so it was only fair to not push back.  As much as he wanted to know why she hadn’t told Bellamy, as much as he wanted to insist that Bellamy should know, even if he didn’t think these messages were actually being heard by anyone, now wasn’t the time.

So he wrapped his arms around her again, and silently prayed they’d both sleep through the night.

 

 **71 APF**  

Clarke dropped the bowl of popcorn into Murphy’s lab so she could crawl back under the blankets, remote already in hand so they could continue watching Friends.  Rachel and Ross weren’t currently together and it was fantastic, but she had a sinking feeling that they were wrong and they were going to end up being endgame.

Murphy stole the remote as she situated herself, and she didn’t think anything of it until he didn’t press play.

“What?” she asked, taking back the popcorn and shoving a handful into her mouth.

He was staring at her, his mouth working like he was trying to find the right words.

“You need to tell him,” he said, and Clarke turned away from him, shoving another handful of popcorn into her still full mouth to avoid having to answer.  Murphy sighed, and Clarke knew he wasn’t going to give up this time.  “Clarke, I’m serious.”

“You don’t even believe they can hear us,” she pointed out through her popcorn, hoping Murphy wouldn’t understand her argument.

Unfortunately, Murphy had gotten really good at understanding Clarke with her mouth full since they’d been trapped in this lab.

“That doesn’t matter.  What matters is _you_ believe they can,” he told her.  “And you haven’t told him.  Clarke, he deserves to know about the baby.  You need to tell him.”

Clarke swallowed and closed her eyes.  “I’m going to,” she assured him.  “It’s hard.”

“That’s not a good excuse.”  Murphy turned on the couch to face her better, even though she still wasn’t looking at him.  “The longer you wait, the harder it’s going to be.  Trust me, Clarke.  You need to tell him before you’ve known for too long.”

Clarke didn’t say anything.  She knew he was right.  Every time she sat down to radio the Ark, to radio Bellamy, she meant to tell him.  But the words would get stuck in her throat, and she’d think about how terrible he’d feel, that he wasn’t here for her, for the baby.  She’d fight with herself about whether protecting him from the guilt was more or less important than letting him know he was going to be father, and then she’d end the call without saying anything.

She knew what Murphy was thinking, that if Emori had waited longer to tell him, it would’ve been too late and he never would’ve found out.  But they were all safe for now, her and Murphy in the lab and the others in the Ark.  Nothing was going to happen to them anytime soon.

She needed to tell him.  She knew she did.  Even if they couldn’t hear the messages, she couldn’t not try to tell him.  He deserved to know about their baby.

But it was hard.

“I’ll tell him,” she promised, glancing over at Murphy.  He was looking at her as if he expected her to do it right now, and Clarke pointedly settled further into the couch and the blankets.  “After we finish Friends.”

Murphy sighed, but started the episode.  “I’m gonna hold you to that.”

*********

Echo slammed her cards down on the table, throwing her arms in the air.  “Full house!” she crowed. “I win!”

Bellamy glanced across the table and rolled his eyes.  “That’s not a full house,” he pointed out, and Monty shook his head.  “And we’re playing bullshit, not poker.”

“Your space games are stupid.”  Echo scoffed, pushing off the table and stalking to the other side of the kitchen.  “I refuse to learn all the different rules you have for the same game.”

“They’re different games,” Harper pointed out, putting some cards in the pile. “Three sixes.”

“Bullshit,” Raven declared, and Harper groaned as she added the pile to her hand.  “What do you Grounders do for fun, then?”

“There’s no time for fun when there’s war,” Echo reminded them, flopping back into her seat.  She had her sword and a cloth in hand, and went about polishing it.  Bellamy wasn’t sure how they’d missed her packing the sword, or why she’d thought there would be any need for a sword while the five of them were on a space station alone.

“That’s fair,” Monty allowed, putting down some card.  “Two eights.”

“Bullshit.”

“Wrong.” Monty held up his two eights, giving Bellamy a shit eating grin.

“Right,” Bellamy returned the grin with one of his own.  “We’re on sevens, Monty.”

Monty swore and tucked the cards back into his hand.

“Two sevens.” Raven restarted the pile.  “Like I was saying, it would be really nice if Clarke and Murphy sent us some music.  Literally all they’d have to do is play it once and we’d have it.  Music would be really nice.”

“Can’t you build something?” Bellamy asked, looking through his cards.  “I feel like building something to play music wouldn’t be that hard.  One eight.”

“You need the music first,” Raven pointed out.  “And there’s none of that left on this stupid space station.”

“You know what else there isn’t on this stupid space station?” Echo paused to lift her cards off the table from where she’d thrown them earlier.  “Six nines.  Actual decent food.”

“First of all, bullshit.  There’s only four of each kind.” Echo glared at Monty but picked up the pile.  “And second of all, the algae’s getting better.”

“We are living like bait,” Echo argued.  “The bait eats the algae and the fish eat the bait and we eat the fish.  The fish don’t eat us.”

Harper grinned.  “Are you expecting giant space fish to come eat us?” she asked, throwing down some cards.  “Three tens.”

“Bullshit.  I have four.”  Echo’s smirk was smug, and Harper rolled her eyes as she picked her cards back up.  “I don’t know why you had to leave space.  Maybe it was because you live like bait and the space fish started eating you.”

“What are you talking about?” Monty laid his cards down on the table, and Bellamy shared a look with Raven.  With Echo as their only example to go by, it seemed that what Grounders did for fun was pick fights, and Monty and Harper had yet to stop taking the bait.  “You know why we left space.  We’ve told you.  What are you—”

_“Hey, Bellamy.  It’s me.  Clarke.  Obviously.”_

“Hey, Bellamy,” Raven echoed, her grin softening the effect of her eyeroll.  “What about the rest of us?”

This was something they did, too.  Whoever was in the room with him when her messages came through would mock the way Clarke usually only seemed to talk to Bellamy.  He didn’t care.  The sound of her voice, alive and well, was more than worth any ribbing he got.

_“It’s been 71 days since Praimfaya.  Today me and Murphy finished the last season of Friends.”_

Friends.  It was a TV show Bellamy knew more about than he should know considering he’d never seen an episode.  It and everything else they’d been watching on TV had been all Clarke had been talking about for at least the last week.  She seemed to be talking around something, but Bellamy couldn’t think for the life of him what it could be, or why she wouldn’t want to tell them.

 _“Spoiler alert: Rachel gets off the fucking plane for Ross.  For_ Ross.”  Whatever worries he had aside, he couldn’t help but grin at the indignation in her voice.  _“I know you have no idea what I’m talking about, but Ross makes Finn look like a good boyfriend.”_   He watched Raven grimace beside him.  _“Yeah.  Raven gets it.  Ugh, I’m so mad.”_

Bellamy’s grin grew with how much Clarke knew them after all the time they spent together.

“Who’s Finn?” Echo asked, and Harper shushed her.

 _“Murphy wants to stage a protest,”_ Clarke continued, and Bellamy let the sound of her laugh wash over him.  He couldn’t remember the last time he’d heard her laugh in person.  Probably that night.  And before that?  He couldn’t think of anytime after the Dropship days. 

 _“I’m pretty sure the only thing we can protest to is the apocalypse and I’m pretty sure it doesn’t care that Rachel ditched her dream job to be with fucking Ross.  Plus Murphy doesn’t think I should risk going outside, since I’m…”_   Clarke trailed off with a sigh, and Bellamy barely had time to wonder what she was going to say before she was powering on again.  _“Which, I mean, makes sense, but like it’s so annoying.  Did you know that Murphy can be stupidly protective when he wants to be?  Murphy wouldn’t make someone ditch their dream job in Paris to be with him.  Murphy would hop on that plane and be in Paris with you.”_

“Wow.” Raven laughed, elbowing him in the side.  “Sounds like your girlfriend has a crush.”

“She’s not my girlfriend,” Bellamy pointed out, rolling his eyes and pushing down the irrational jealously that Raven’s unfounded statement caused.

_“Sorry.  I’m rambling.  There’s something I need to tell you, Bellamy.  I should have told you when I found out.  I don’t know why I didn’t.  I’m nervous, I guess.  I know you’ll blame yourself for not being here, but you need to know I don’t.  I don’t blame you.  If you’d stayed, all of you would’ve died.  I need you to keep not-dying, okay Bellamy?  I need you to come back down in five years, and I don’t blame you for being in space when space is the only thing keeping you alive.  Remember that.  Please.”_

Dread had been building in Bellamy from the moment Clarke had said that there was something she needed to tell him, a dozen scenarios running through his mind.  The radiation was worse than they’d thought.  Her radiation poisoning was worse than they’d thought.  She was sick in some other way.

He felt Raven’s hand close over his under the table, and forced himself to breathe.  There was no use worrying when there might not even be something to worry about.

_“I’m rambling again.  Sorry.  I need you to watch for a sec, okay?  Or listen, I guess.  Give me a minute to set this up.  I haven’t done it by myself yet.”_

“If she doesn’t play us some music, I’m going to scream,” Raven declared in the silence after the radio clicked off.  The others laughed, but Bellamy’s heart was still in his throat.  Clarke wouldn’t be nervous to show them some music.  That wasn’t what was going to happen.

The radio clicked back on after not too long.

_“There.  Are you ready?”_

There was another pause, and then a soft _ba-dum ba-dum ba-dum._

Bellamy was at a loss as to what they were listening to, sharing looks of confusion with the others.

“It almost sounds like a heartbeat,” Monty said slowly.

A heartbeat?  That didn’t make sense.  Why would Clarke broadcast her heartbeat?  Or Murphy’s, if this was his heartbeat and not hers.

_Ba-dum, ba-dum, ba-dum._

Raven let out a sudden gasp, her hand squeezing his tightly.  Her eyes and mouth were wide when he turned to look at her, but the maybe-heartbeat faded slightly and Clarke’s voice was back before he could question her.

 _“Do you hear that, Bellamy?”_ she whispered, her voice thick with what seemed like unshed tears.  _“It’s a heartbeat.  Our baby’s heartbeat.”_

Bellamy felt his world turn on its axis, though that could be partially due to the artificial gravity readjusting.  The words were soaking into his mind, not fully registering.  It was a heartbeat, Monty was right.  A baby’s heartbeat.  _Their_ baby’s heartbeat.

_“I’m pregnant, Bellamy.”_

Clarke was pregnant.

_“We’re having a baby.”_

They were having a baby.

_“You’re gonna be a dad.”_

He was going to be a dad.

_Holy shit Clarke was pregnant and they were having a baby and he was going to be a dad._

Clarke was still talking, but he wasn’t hearing her words anymore.  His eyes had fallen shut, and he listened to the faint sound of the heartbeat in the background of the transmission, barely noticing the tears that were running down his cheeks.

He was having a baby.  He and Clarke were having a baby.  This should have been one of the happiest moments of his life.

And it was, for the minute or so after Clarke finished talking and put the radio back near whatever was projecting the heartbeat, and he let the sound of it’s life, of _their baby’s life_ , wash over him.

And then the radio clicked off, and reality crashed back down.

Clarke was on the ground, and, when she had their baby, it would be on the ground with her.  He wouldn’t get to meet his child for five years.  Clarke would be raising their child alone for five years.

“Hey.”  Raven’s hand moved to his shoulder, squeezing tightly.  “You’re okay.”

Bellamy shook his head, reaching up to wipe away the mix of happy and sad tears that were still streaming down his face.

“I left her,” he whispered, the words breaking against the sob that was trying to escape.  “I left her, and I left our baby.  They’ll be alone for _five years_.”

“She’s not alone,” Raven assured him, scooting closer to pull him into a hug.  “She’s got Murphy.  Don’t tell him I said this, but besides you, he’s probably her best bet right now.  He’s got almost as much medical training as she does, and there’s no way either of them are gonna let that kid grow up to be anything other than brilliant and badass”

Bellamy pulled out of the hug and sighed, but didn’t respond.  He knew all that, technically, but it was still eating at his heart that he wasn’t going to be there for the first five years of his kid’s life.  That wasn’t the kind of father he was planning to be, the few times he’d thought about having kids of his own.

Raven cleared her throat loudly, which, combined with the look she sent the rest of the table, was a plea for them to help her out, to offer up anything they could think of.

“One time my sister had a baby,” Echo supplied, not looking up from her sword polishing.  “He cried so much she barely slept for over a year, and she always smelled like baby shit.  But by the time my nephew was five, he was actually okay to be around.  For limited amounts of time.  My point is, you’re missing the no sleep and dirty diapers and going back for the okay part.  You should be happy.”

Harper rolled her eyes.  “I don’t think that was as helpful as you thought it was,” she pointed out.  Echo huffed and rolled her eyes.  “You heard Clarke, Bellamy.  She doesn’t blame you.  She knows why you’re not there, and she knows you’re coming back.  She’s not going to hold the apocalypse against you, and she’s gonna make sure your kid knows that too.”

Bellamy nodded.  He could do this.  He could make it through five years of only knowing his child through radio calls.  He could make it up to Clarke when they got down, be the best dad in the entire universe.  Clarke didn’t blame him.  She’d told him that, now and a hundred times before.  He’d be there for her as soon as he could.

He stood, pushing back from the table.  “I need some time,” he told the others, and Raven sent him a knowing look.

“You mean you need some time to cry over that heartbeat in private?” she guessed, and Bellamy didn’t bother to pretend he was going to do anything different.  She grabbed his hand as he started to turn away, staring up at him.  “Your kid’s gonna be fine, Bellamy.  Clarke and Murphy aren’t gonna let anything happen to it, and we’ll be back on the ground before you know it.”

“And you’re gonna be a dad,” Monty added, grinning at him from across the table.  “That’s pretty exciting.”

And, despite everything, Bellamy found himself grinning back.  “Yeah,” he agreed.  “It’s amazing.”

*********

Clarke crawled into bed, settling herself against Murphy.

“I told him,” she whispered into his neck, and he hugged her closer.

“That’s good.”

 

**65 BPF**

“Do you have to leave tomorrow?”

Clarke leaned against the doorway, her arms crossed tightly over her chest as she watched Bellamy brush his teeth.  They were in the bathroom that connected to one of the bedrooms in Becca’s mansion, had been ordered to get some sleep.

Bellamy sighed and rinsed out his mouth before turning around.  She could barely look at him, at that look in his eyes that she still couldn’t figure out.

“Clarke,” he said, and she had to close her eyes.  “We have to have a backup plan in case Raven and your mom can’t get this nightblood thing to work.”

She opened her eyes again and sighed.  “I know,” she said, hating how raw the words came out.  “Just—we’re always apart, Bellamy.  I don’t want to be apart anymore.”

He stepped closer, and she found she didn’t care what the look in his eyes meant as long as he kept looking at her like that.  “It’ll be fine,” he assured her, and she wished he wouldn’t lie.  He didn’t know that.  None of them knew that.

“Bellamy,” she said, stepping off from the wall towards him.  He shook his head, his hands twitching by his sides as if he wanted to reach out.

“Clarke,” he said.  One of his hands drifted up to her face, brushing a stray piece of hair behind her ear.  She fought the urge to lean into his touch, already lost in his eyes.  This wasn’t good.  She should pull away and leave and stop this before anything happened.

“Clarke,” he said again.  “There’s something I need to tell you.”

She recognized the look in his eyes then, recognized it from the too long list of now dead eyes who’d shared that look before.  She couldn’t let him say it, couldn’t let his join them.

“Don’t,” she whispered, stepping closer despite herself.  “Don’t, okay?  Save it for when we’re safe.  Please.”

He shook his head, his thumb tracing patterns against her cheek.  “Clarke,” he said again, and she both hated and loved the way her name sounded on his lips.

But she could tell he was going to protest, was going to say it anyway.  She panicked and did the one thing she knew would shut him up.

It was only a moment, long enough to stretch up on her toes and uncross her arms so she could hold his for balance, and then her lips were on his.  It took him a second or two, and then his hand on her cheek slid back into his hair, his other rising to wrap around her waist, and then he was kissing her back.  She felt tears gathering in her eyes, willed them not to fall.

It felt right.  It made her forget the coming apocalypse, wonder why she hadn’t done this before.  Nothing had ever felt more right than Bellamy holding her in his arms, than their lips being together.

By the time they pulled back, her hands had travelled up to dig into his hair, and there was a wetness on her cheeks that she didn’t know if it had come from her eyes or his.  She rested her forehead against his as she caught her breath, and then pulled back enough that she could look at him.

“Don’t.” She shook her head, her eyes pleading with him.  “Please, Bellamy.  People say that, and then they die.  I can’t lose you, okay?”

His mouth opened as if he wanted to say something, but it closed again without any sound coming out.  He tugged her close against his chest and held her there for a long moment.

“Okay,” he whispered into her hair, and Clarke let out a breath, relief flooding over her.  They stood there a while longer, until she pulled back.

“You should go to sleep,” she told him, her tongue darting out to run over her lips.  “It’s a long trip back.”

Bellamy followed her into the bedroom and snaked an arm around her waist.  “I don’t want to sleep,” he told her, the words sending a shiver down her spine as he pressed his face against the back of her neck.

“Me neither,” she whispered back, leaning into him as his fingers found their way under her shirt to brush against her sides.

Bellamy hummed against her neck, his lips brushing the skin, and Clarke couldn’t breathe.  “What should we do, then?” he asked.  “If we’re not going to sleep?”

Clarke turned in his grasp, moving back just enough to watch him, to memorize the look in his eyes and the rise and fall of his chest.

“I can think of something,” she told him, the words barely out before her lips were on his again.

When it was over, when they were lying naked in a bed that was far too soft to be real, he rose on his elbow to gaze down at her.  The look in his eyes was the same, but she could see the differences now between him and the others.

“Clarke,” he breathed, leaning down to kiss her deeply.  He pulled back again, his eyes searching hers.  “I—”

“Don’t.”  She cut him off, shaking her head.  “When we’re safe, okay?”

He watched her for a long moment, and she tried to show him with her eyes that she knew what he was going to say, that she wanted more than almost anything to say the same thing.

Almost was the key word.  The only thing she wanted more was for him to survive, and if he said what she knew he wanted to say, he wouldn’t.

He seemed to understand, and lay back down, burying his face in her neck.

“When we’re safe.”  He said it like a promise, and Clarke clung to the hope it brought.

“When we’re safe.”

 

 **79 APF**  

Murphy was pulling a sweatshirt over his head, and the music Clarke had been listening to stopped immediately.

He popped his head out, and she pointed at him, the remote to her mouth like a microphone.

“Honey honey, duh duh duh duh, uh huh, honey honey,” she sang, flipping her head back and forth to her offbeat lyrics.  “I heard about him before.  Duh duh duh duh duh duh duh-uh, and now I know what they mean he’s a love machine!  Oh he makes me dizzy!”

“What are you singing?”  Murphy grinned at her as he sat on the couch.

“I feel like it’s called Honey Honey,” Clarke told him, and he nodded in agreement.  Makes sense.  “And I love it.  And this movie.”  She turned the remote on the screen, rewinding whatever she’d been watching.  “It’s honestly the best thing ever.”

Murphy raised an eyebrow, torn between keeping his reputation by complaining about watching what was probably another musical and being excited that they were watching another musical.

“What’s it about?” he asked instead.

Clarke grinned, almost bouncing in her seat.  “This chick, Sophie, is getting married,” she said, and Murphy nodded along.  “And she found her mom’s old diary and figured out that her dad is one of these three dudes, so she tracked them all down and invited them to her wedding.”

“Obviously the most rational decision,” Murphy commented, and Clarke laughed.

“Obviously,” she agreed.  “Also obvious is that she didn’t tell her mom.”

“Of course.”

“So that’s gonna be hilarious when she finds out.”  Clarke tugged the blanket higher up her chest.  “Also it’s a musical and there’s a sing-a-long version and there’s only been one song so far but it was amazing and you’re gonna love it.”

Murphy could already tell he was going to love it—though it would be hard for it to rival High School Musical—but he couldn’t let them watch a musical without grumbling about it first.  It was tradition.

“This better not be like Les Miserables where everyone sings literally everything,” he complained, not mentioning that every version of Les Miserables they’d marathoned the day before had been fantastic.  “There better be some actual talking.”

Clarke snorted, already starting the movie.  “Actually, I think Sophie was Cosette in one of those,” she told him as she settled into his side.

Late that night, their eyelids were drooping closed but Murphy started the sequel for the sixth time.  They managed to gain enough energy to use their remote microphones to give what was probably the best performance of When I Kissed The Teacher since the first apocalypse, and then collapsed on the couch again.

Murphy was starting to drift off when Clarke jerked upwards with a gasp.

“Are you okay?” He was suddenly alert, pushing away the sleep.

Clarke turned to him with wide eyes, nodding, and grabbed his hand.  She pressed it against her stomach just as the baby kicked again, and he closed his eyes as a wave of emotion swept over him.

“Are _you_ okay?” Clarke asked, and he nodded.

“I’m good,” he whispered, opening his eyes again to grin at her through the tears that were now streaming down his cheeks.

And he was.  Yes, he was also thinking about his son, about the last time he felt him kick Emori, but for once it didn’t hurt.  Maybe it was Clarke’s baby that did it, so tiny but strong enough for them to feel it.  Whatever the reason, he wasn’t going to argue.

“I’m good,” he repeated, pulling his hand back.

They settled back into the couch, Clarke tucked against his side with her hands still on her stomach, and they were both asleep before Waterloo.

 

 **84 APF**  

Murphy wasn’t in bed when Clarke woke up.  It wasn’t that strange of an occurrence.  The baby made her sleep in, as well as take several naps throughout the day.

So she wasn’t concerned.

She wasn’t concerned when he wasn’t in the TV room or the kitchen, either.  She told herself as she poured a bowl of cereal and un-evaporated the milk that he was probably in the lab.  He’d been in there pretty frequently since they’d found out she was pregnant, scouring the computers for information on pregnancies and labour.  She had been, too, but at a much more leisurely pace than him.

He was in the lab when she found him, but the screen before him held an ultrasound picture rather than medical information.  It didn’t take her long to note that it wasn’t her kid’s.

She frowned as she made her way into the lab.  It wasn’t that Murphy didn’t ever look at his son’s ultrasound.  He did, multiple times a week.  It was the tear tracks down his cheeks and the way he was hunched over in front of the screen that made her worry.

She hopped up on the table behind him, setting her cereal down beside her.

“What’s wrong?”

He didn’t look at her and didn’t answer for a few long minutes.

“It’s his due date,” he whispered, and if his words alone hadn’t made Clarke’s breath catch in her throat, the rawness of his voice would have.  She wondered vaguely if he’d gotten any sleep at all the night before, how long he’d been out here.  “Or the due date I calculated, anyway.  It might not be exact.”

Clarke bit her lip, trying to keep her own tears in.  She reached forward, squeezing Murphy’s shoulder, and wished she had any better way to comfort him.

“He would’ve been here about now,” Murphy continued, his voice wavering.  His shoulder shook under her hand, and Clarke closed her eyes.  “I’d be a dad.  I could be holding him.”

Clarke didn’t know what to say, didn’t know what you were supposed to say to someone who’d lost both their unborn child and the love of their life.  So she slid off the table and wrapped her arms around him from behind.

“Do you want to talk about it?” she asked quietly, and Murphy shook his head.  “If you need anything, let me know, okay?”

Murphy took in a shaking breath, and leaned forward to press his fingers against his forehead, breaking out of her hold.

“I think,” he said, breaking off.  “I think I need to be alone for a bit.”

Clarke nodded, collecting her cereal and stepping away.  “I’ll be in the TV room,” she told him, and he didn’t give any acknowledgement that he’d heard.

She retreated from the room, sending a worried glance over her shoulder.  She picked up the book she’d been reading from their bedroom on the way, and settled into the couch knowing that even if she managed to read some of it, she wouldn’t absorb a word.

 *********

Murphy stared at the screen, at his son, at Max, until his vision blurred.  If Emori hadn’t died, if Max hadn’t died with her, he wouldn’t even look like his ultrasound anymore.  He’d be a full baby, ready to be born, ready to be held and loved and take on the world.

It wasn’t fair.

None of this was fair.  It wasn’t fair that he was sent down to Earth to die.  It wasn’t fair that he’d lived only to find out that life was worse than hell itself.  It wasn’t fair that he’d found Emori, that he’d loved her and she’d loved him, only for her to be ripped away far too soon.  It wasn’t fair that his son would never be born.

It wasn’t fair.

The first sob that came wasn’t the first he’d cried that day.  He hadn’t slept at all, had given up shortly after Clarke had fallen asleep, and spent the night in this chair, watching the unchanging face of his son.

It was a cycle he’d long since gotten used to.  Cry until he ran out of tears, and then wait until more formed and start again.

It wasn’t fair.

He’d give anything to talk to Emori again, just for a minute.  There were so many things he wanted to tell her, things he should have told her while she was still alive.  He’d give anything to hold her tight and never let go.

It wasn’t fair.

The tears ran out again, and he stared blankly ahead, not even trying to look at the screen anymore.  He blinked, trying to clear his vision, and glanced away.  His eyes caught on the radio, and he wondered vaguely if Clarke had been coming in to radio Bellamy.  A passing thought at how much it seemed to help her to talk to him when he probably couldn’t even hear her gave him an idea.

It was stupid, so fucking stupid, but it stuck.

He rolled his chair over to the radio, tugging the ultrasound monitor along with him.

His hand trembled as he picked up the transmitter, turning it on and raising it to his lips.

“Hey, Emori,” he started, his voice raw and weak.  “It’s me, John.  God, this is so stupid.”  He paused, turning off the radio and pressing his forehead into the cool metal of the table it rested on.  He took a moment to take a deep breath, and turned it on again and letting out a self-deprecating laugh. “I probably sound like an idiot.  You can’t hear me.  I know that.  At least Clarke has the possibility that Bellamy can hear her.  I don’t.  You’re gone, Emori.  You can’t hear me.”

He had to pause again, to wait for the lump in his throat to shrink enough that he could talk around it.

“Clarke thinks I should talk about it, and I am.  We both are.  But there’s nothing to talk about.  You’re gone, you’re both gone, and I don’t have anyone anymore.”

He sighed, lifting his head to gaze at Max again, the fingers of his free hand lifting absently to trace his son’s face.  “I mean, I’ve got Clarke right now,” he amended.  “I know how terrible it is to be entirely alone for too long, how crazy you go.  Fuck, I know.  I can’t do that to her.  And then she’ll have her baby, and I’m not going to abandon her and make her raise her kid on her own.”  He paused, swallowing heavily.  “But then Bellamy will come back down, and they’ll have him, and I’ll have no one again.

“I don’t know what I’m going to do then,” he admitted in a whisper.  “It’s too far away.  We probably won’t even survive that long anyway.”  He took a deep breath, forcing his voice to be stronger, ignoring the tremor that refused to go away.  “So I’m not going to think about.  There’s nothing to think about, so there’s nothing to talk about.”

He paused again, long enough that his lip started to shake and his vision started to blur once more.

“Emori, I miss you,” he whispered.  “I miss you so fucking much.  I’m so, so sorry.  I watch you die again and again in my sleep, and it’s destroying me, but I deserve it.  You were _alone_.”  His voice broke on the word, and he closed his eyes.  “You were all alone, and I had to watch and I couldn’t fucking do anything.  I couldn’t be there for you.  I couldn’t save you.  I couldn’t even fucking hold you while you died.”

He swallowed, willing his heartrate to slow down.

“Today was your due date.”  The words were barely there, barely a whisper, barely able to be heard around the lump in his throat.  “Today we could’ve been able to hold our son.

“Maybe he would’ve been born early.  We would’ve been so nervous.”  He couldn’t help but grin through his tears at the image of what a mess he would’ve been.  “You would’ve been so strong Emori, and I probably would’ve cried, like I did when you told me.”  He leaned back in his chair, the memory bitter sweet.  “God, Emori, I was so happy that day, when you held my hand to your stomach.  Do you remember how impatient I was?  I was half asleep and so confused, but then I felt him.  I can’t remember how long it’s been since I was that happy.  I don’t know if I was ever that happy before I had you.”

His tongue darted out to wet his lips, and he looked back at his son.  “Maybe he would’ve been born today, right on time.  I doubt it.  When have either of us been on time for anything?

“Probably he’d have been late.  We’d be in the bunker or in space, somewhere safe, and you’d be so mad at him, trying everything you could to get him to come.”  His voice dropped back to a whisper, his fingers more deliberate in their tracing of his son’s face.  “And then he’d be here, and we’d get to hold him in our arms.

“He has my eyes,” he decided, his fingers brushing over the closed ones on the ultrasound.  “You said you wanted him to, so he does.  But the rest of him is you.  He’s beautiful, Emori, beautiful like you.  He’s probably got your tattoos, too.  Born a badass, that’s our kid.”  He chuckled briefly before returning to the daydreams he’d had since he found out he was going to be a dad, of how he pictured their son.

“He’s a fussy baby, but I wouldn’t expect anything less with my kid.  Screams the whole place down when he doesn’t get his way.”  His vision was blurring again, and he had no idea if any of his words could be understood in the raw whisper that was all that would come out.  Not that it mattered.  It wasn’t like anyone was actually listening.  “But he’s also the sweetest.  He’ll cuddle with you for hours like there’s nowhere else he’d rather be, and he can’t talk yet, but we can tell he loves us so much, Emori.  So much.

“I know Roan made us promise, and technically he didn’t spill the beans, but I feel like the fact that he died really soon after pretty much makes his promise not count.  So he can have the middle name.

“His first name is Max.  Max Roan Murphy.”  Murphy gave his son a watery smile, sniffing.  “I know I told you I didn’t like that name, but it’s grown on me.  Our little Max.

“He would’ve been amazing, Emori.  The best damn kid you ever met.  I’m so sorry I failed you.  Both of you.  I’m so sorry you’re gone, and I’ll never get to hold you again.”

He squeezed his eyes shut against the wave of anger that hit him, pulling his hand away from the screen to grip the edge of the table so tightly he could feel it digging into his palm.

“It’s not fair,” he growled into the radio, anger and anguish rushing through his voice.  “It’s not fucking fair that you’re gone, but Bellamy gets everything.  Bellamy gets to sit in fucking space for five years and then come back down to Clarke.  He gets to meet his kid, and I don’t.  He gets everything, and I get shit.  It’s not _fair._ ”  The anger broke, leaving behind only the anguish, his words growing rushed and desperate and sobs threatened to overtake them.

“It’s not fair that we don’t get to see him.  We don’t get to hold him or kiss him or tell him how much we love him.  We don’t get to know his first words or teach him how to read or how to fight or climb a tree.  We don’t get any of it, and it’s not fair and I—”

He broke off with a sob that wracked his body, clutching his hands to his chest as he crumbled.  He broke, not for the first time since the second apocalypse but for the first real time today.

It wasn’t fair.

*********

_“Hey, Emori.  It’s me, John.”_

They were eating breakfast and listening to Clarke and a distant Murphy singing Mamma Mia—it was absolutely terrible as Clarke and Murphy seemed to lack any and all musical talent, but it was still technically the only music they had—when Murphy’s voice came over the radio, temporarily turning off the "music".  That alone would have been enough to make Bellamy pause, his spoon halfway to his mouth.  Murphy had never radioed them.  His voice had shown up in the back of Clarke’s messages enough to clear up any doubts concerning his status as one of the living.

But never like this.

His voice made them freeze, but it was who he addressed, how he sounded just as broken as he had when she’d died, that made the algae in Bellamy’s stomach turn over.  Whatever this was, this wasn’t meant for them to hear.

Harper’s hand went to her mouth, and she was crying silently basically from the first words, Monty scooting closer to wrap his arm around her in comfort.  Bellamy felt like he was going to puke the longer this message went on, the longer they listened to something they never should be listening to.

_“You’re gone, you’re both gone, and I don’t have anyone anymore.”_

“Both?” Echo wondered quietly, and someone shushed her.  Bellamy had wondered vaguely, too, but it was quickly pushed away as the guilt in his gut grew with every word Murphy said.

He dropped his spoon back in his bowl, pushing away the remnants of his breakfast, as Murphy all but admitted that the only reason he was still alive was Clarke, that he wasn’t going to make her have to be alone, that if it wasn’t for her...Bellamy couldn’t force himself to even think of what Murphy was insinuating.  All he could focus on was how raw Murphy sounded, how he’d never have thought he’d hear him sounding anything like this.

There was a pause, and then:

_“Today was your due date.  Today we could’ve been able to hold our son.”_

Raven’s hand found his under the table, and he glanced her way but couldn’t see her through the tears that were suddenly streaming down his face.  Someone was openly sobbing, and Bellamy had to press his free hand to his mouth to keep his own in.

Murphy’s voice became almost wistful despite its despair as he spoke of the baby, of finding out about it, of what he would’ve been like if he’d been given the chance to be born, but the words were barely registering.

_“His first name is Max.  Max Roan Murphy.”_

He couldn’t imagine what Murphy was going through.  He couldn’t imagine what it would be like if he never made it back to Earth, if he never got to meet his child.

It wasn’t fair to Murphy, that he was thinking that while listening to him deal with that exact situation.  If he hadn’t opened the bunker, Murphy and Emori would’ve been safe inside, and they would’ve had their son.  He and Clarke would’ve been in there, too, and he would’ve been able to be there with her when she found out about their baby.  Their kids would’ve only been a few months apart, they could’ve been friends.  They’d terrorize the bunker, for sure, but Murphy wouldn't have had to lose Emori and his son.

But if he’d opened the bunker, Raven would’ve died.  Harper and Monty would’ve died.  Echo would’ve died.  _His sister_ would’ve died.

 _“It’s not fucking fair that you’re gone, but Bellamy gets everything.  Bellamy gets to sit in fucking space for five years and then come back down to Clarke.  He gets to meet his kid, and I don’t.  He gets everything, and I get shit.  It’s not_ fair _.”_

He deserved the anger coming though Murphy’s voice, deserved everything and more that Murphy could possibly say to him.  Emori and their son were dead because he opened the bunker, and because he fell for the trap with the Grounders that killed her.

He got to go back to Clarke.  It would take five years, but he’d get to meet their child.

Murphy would never get any of that.

The anger disappeared and Murphy’s words slurred together as they were overtaken by sobs, and then the words disappeared completely as he broke, the seconds stretching longer and longer as Murphy’s hysterical sobbing echoed through the Ark.

Bellamy was fairly certain that Murphy didn’t even realize the radio was still on, and the guilt and sadness piled up in his gut until he was pretty sure he was going to puke.

Raven had tugged him closer at some point, and they were holding each other as their own tears wracked their bodies.  Even Echo didn’t have anything to say, and if Bellamy had had a thought to spare for her at that moment, he would’ve assumed her thoughts were filled with the things Murphy had screamed at the both of them 84 days ago.

After far too long, after they’d all returned to staring blankly at each other or into their unfinished bowls of algae, Murphy’s sobs quietened down to whimpers, and then ragged breathing and the occasional sniff in what was otherwise silence.

When he spoke again, his voice was more raw and broken than Bellamy had ever heard it, making his stomach turn and fresh tears rise behind his eyes.

_“Happy birthday, Max.  Papa loves you so much.  I hope you’re taking care of your mom, wherever you guys are.  I’m so, so sorry I failed you.  I love you.  I love you, Emori, and I love you, Max, and I miss you both so, so much.”_

A pause, and then:

_“Fuck, this was a stupid idea.”_

The radio clicked off then, and the "music" turned back on, Clarke and even Murphy's voices far too loud.

_"—been brokenhearted, blue since the day we—"_

Raven pushed her tablet away as soon as the music was off, and they waited in silence for a few more minutes before they concluded that that really was it, that Murphy was gone again.

It was Monty who broke the silence with a whispered, _“Holy shit.”_

“Did you guys—” Harper broke off, clearing her throat before she could speak again.  “Did any of you know?”

No one answered, not that they needed to.  It was a secret, Murphy had said as much.  The only people who had known were Murphy and Emori and for some reason Roan, and now probably Clarke.  Bellamy hoped Clarke knew.  It wasn’t that he hoped she could see the same things he could when he thought about their kid and Murphy’s.  He just hoped Murphy wasn’t dealing with this on his own.

“Murphy was going to be a _dad_.”  Monty again, his voice in some sort of detached awe at the thought that Murphy of all people was going to have a baby, and then lost both that baby and the one person he loved most in the world.

Bellamy pushed away from the table, suddenly finding it hard to breath.

“Bellamy,” Raven said, and then stopped.

He shook his head.  “I’m going to be alone for a bit.”

The others looked like they wanted to protest, but they’d heard Murphy’s accusations just as clearly as he had.  He got to go home to Clarke and their baby.  He got the family that was alive.  Murphy didn’t have any of that.

It wasn’t fair.

He was gone before anyone could find any words to say, and was breathing heavily as he collapsed on his bed.  He reached for the tablet, opened the file he’d been listening to on repeat.

_“Hey, Bellamy.  It’s me.  Clarke.  Obviously.  It’s been 71 days since Praimfaya.”_

He skipped through Clarke’s voice, stopping when she moved the radio closer to the heartbeat.  The heartbeat of their baby.

It usually calmed him, usually made him smile and cry and picture tiny baby hands and noses and toes.

Today it made him wonder if Murphy had ever gotten the chance to hear his son’s heartbeat.  It reminded him that his baby was alive, and that Murphy’s wasn’t.  It made him wish he could go back in time, change anything to make it right, to make it better, to keep Emori alive and save Murphy all this heartache.

It wasn’t helping, but when the heartbeat ended, he started it again, the steady thump keeping time as he cried quietly into his pillow.

It wasn’t fair.

*********

Clarke was reading on the couch when Murphy found her, so drained of energy he felt he could fall asleep immediately.

She jerked around awkwardly when she noticed him, dropping her book on the ground.

“Hey,” she said softly, adjusting the blankets around him when he collapsed onto the couch, his head in her lap and his arms wrapped loosely around her waist.  “Are you okay?”  He shook his head, closed his eyes as her hand started stroking his hair.  “Do you want to talk about it?”  He shook his head again.  “Okay.  Do you want to watch a movie?  Mamma Mia?”

He shook his head quickly, his throat closing up at that.  He loved it, and it had definitely taken the title of his favourite musical, but there was no way he could watch it right now.  There was too much talk of pregnancy, even in the first movie, for him to handle.

He didn’t say any of that, but Clarke seemed to understand in the way they always seemed to understand each other lately.

“High School Musical?” she suggested, and he nodded.

He felt her move as she reached for the remote, and then the opening to the first movie reached his ears.

“I’m gonna go make us something to eat, okay?”  Clarke tried to stand, but Murphy panicked and held her in place.

“Don’t,” he whispered against her stomach.  “Don’t leave me alone.”

Clarke let out a shaky breath but settled back against the couch. 

“I won’t,” she promised.  “Never.”

* * *

 _Cause you were just a small bump unborn_  
_For four months then torn from life_  
_Maybe you were needed up there_  
_But we're still unaware as why_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry
> 
> Hoping to have an update up next Wednesday so I'll see you then!
> 
> In the meantime, come follow me on Tumblr at probably-voldemort
> 
> Comments and kudos pass my finals ;)


	5. i wanna help you be better than me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well well well would you look what we have here. Three weeks in a row boys and girls. Mark that on your calendars.
> 
> This is a generally angst free chapter, you're welcome. It is in reward for putting up with the last few very angsty chapters, and is also because it was supposed to be part of the last chapter but then that part had way too much going on so I had to cut it into two.
> 
> As of right now, next week's update is not finished. I'm gonna try to get it done before I head to Mexico in a couple days, but I can't guarantee it will be done. If that's the case, there won't be an update next week, and I'll update again as soon as I can when I'm back, which might not be right away cause I've got a ton of stuff going on this break. Chances are, though, there won't be an update two weeks from now, unless I'm magically able to write two chapters in the next like three or four days. Which is not likely.
> 
> And now without further ado, please enjoy.

_I don't know your name_  
_But I can't wait to say it_  
_And I don't know your face_  
_But I know it will blow me away_

* * *

**93 APF**  

“So.”  Raven tapped on her tablet, a scoreboard appearing on the screen on the wall.  “Murphy’s prediction for Clarke’s due date is day 215.  My bet is day 215, a boy, 7 pounds 6 ounces, and 20 inches.  Monty?”

“Why did you pick the due date?” he asked, in leu of making a bet.  “Babies don’t usually come on the due date.”

“Because this is Clarke we’re talking about,” Raven said, rolling her eyes as if it should be obvious.  “Clarke’s gonna command that baby to get out on time, and it’s gonna listen if it knows what’s good for it.”

“Question.”  Harper raised her hand, as if they were in school and Raven was some weird teacher teaching a totally probably lesson.  “Why did you get to make the first bet?  Shouldn’t Bellamy get to?  Since he’s, you know, the dad and all?”

Raven huffed, sinking back into her seat at the table.  “Did Bellamy go through all the trouble of making this scoreboard?”  Bellamy had to admit that was a fair point, though he did watch her make it and it took her less than five minutes, so maybe it wasn’t _that_ fair of a point.  Not that he cared either way when he made his bet.

“I bet day 203,” Echo interjected, and Raven grumbled something about waiting turns but entered the information on her tablet anyway.  “Babies tend to come early on the ground.  A girl, 7 pounds, and 17 inches.”

Harper and Monty made their bets, with Harper in favour of a boy on day 224 and Monty of a girl on 214, and then everyone was looking to Bellamy.

“I feel like it’ll be early,” he said, hoping he still didn’t look like he was hurting every time he thought about Clarke and their baby and how much he’d be missing.  “But not too early.  Maybe 210?  And I have a feeling it’ll be a girl, but if it’s a boy and Clarke asks, that’s what I said.”  Raven glanced up from her typing to offer him a tight smile, and he appreciated it.  “And let’s go with 6 pounds 8 ounces and 22 inches.”

Raven finished her typing with a flourish, and tossed her tablet onto the table.  “May the best woman win,” she said, grinning at them.

“Right,” Harper agreed.  “If only we didn’t have to wait a hundred days to find out I did.”

Raven opened her mouth to trash talk back, but they were interrupted by Clarke’s voice.

_“Raven, darling, love of my life.”_

“Finally, some recognition,” Raven crowed, throwing her arms in the air.  Bellamy laughed, and she shot a grin his way.

 _“I need you to pass on a message for me.  Could you be a dear and do that for me?”_   She paused, and her voice changed from falsely sweet to annoyed.  _“What are you laughing at?”_

Bellamy’s laugh cut off, as if she could somehow hear him, and he berated himself for being such an idiot when Murphy said, _“You sound ridiculous.”_

He could practically hear Clarke roll her eyes.  _“Fuck off.  I’m asking for a favour.  I have to be polite if I want Raven to do it for me.”_

_“Right.  That makes so much sense.”_

_“Screw you.  It’s called manners.  Maybe learn some.”_   They were all chuckling by the time she switched back to her overly sweet voice, addressing Raven again instead of Murphy.  _“Raven, honey, I’m so sorry you had to hear that.  I need a favour, okay?  Please tell Bellamy that he’s a fucking dick and I hate him.”_

Bellamy’s laughter cut off, his breath catching in his throat as he tried to figure out exactly what might’ve caused her change in attitude.  He thought they were friends.  More than friends.  He loved her, and he was pretty sure she loved him back.

 _“Fitting,”_ Murphy commented dryly _.  “Considering fucking his dick is what got you into this problem in the first place.”_

_“Fuck off, Murphy.  And don’t call it a problem.  It can hear you.  Maybe.”_

The others had tried to hide their laughter at Clarke’s sickly-sweet admission that she hated him—except Echo, who’d acted as if it was the funniest thing she’d heard in ages—but they were all outright laughing right now.

At Clarke’s statement that the problem could hear them, he put two and two together and figured they were talking about the baby.  Which most likely meant that Clarke didn’t actually hate him and actually just hated being pregnant, which, while still not great, was at least better than her hating him.

 _“Anyway, Raven,”_ she continued.  _“If you could pass that message on, I will love you forever.  Also, please tell him that my back hurts and my boobs hurt and my whole body hurts and I have to pee all the time and it’s his fault and he owes me so many because this is all his fault and I hate him.  Thank you.  Here, hold this.”_

_“Why?”_

_“I need to puke again.  Thanks, Bellamy.”_

The kitchen filled with the sound of Clarke’s retching slightly away from the microphone, but even that wasn’t enough to quell the laughter of the others.

 _“Do you want me to hold your hair?”_ Murphy asked, and Clarke paused her puking long enough to answer.

_“I can hold my own fucking hair.”_

_“Sounds good.”_   Murphy’s voice grew louder as he started talking directly into the radio rather than to Clarke.  _“You owe me so many, too, Bellamy.  Your girlfriend is a nightmare.  There are only so many times I can watch her cry over Mamma Mia! before I snap.”_

Even if Murphy was probably joking, Bellamy did note that he definitely did owe him a lot.  He and Clarke were keeping each other alive, and he was helping her with her pregnancy when he couldn’t be there.  Murphy would be helping raise his kid, too, for the next five years.

A pause.  _“Fuck off, Murphy!  It’s sad!”_ More retching.

Murphy laughed.  _“No, it isn’t.”_

_“Fuck you!  Yes, it is!  She just wants her dad at her wedding, but she doesn’t know which one he is!  It’s sad as fuck!”_

_“All I’m hearing is you want to fuck me.  I guess I’m down.”_

_“Tell Raven to tell Bellamy that I was wrong.  It’s actually your fault I’m puking.”_   Clarke made a few obviously fake puking noises, and Bellamy found himself laughing again.

_“Raven, Clarke wants you to tell Bellamy that she loves me more than anyone in the entire universe and is going to name your child after me because that’s just how much she—”_

_“Murphy,”_ Clarke interrupted, a crinkling noise making Bellamy think she’d snatched the radio back.  _“Stop shit talking me while I’m puking.”_

 _“Stop shit talking_ me _while you’re puking.”_

 _“Fuck off.”_   Clarke’s voice turned sweet again.  _“Bye, Raven.  Don’t forget to tell Bellamy he sucks.  Hope you’re all having a fantastic time not puking every two minutes and with boobs that don’t feel like they’re gonna fall off.  Enjoy it for me.  Murphy, let’s go watch Mamma—”_

The radio clicked off, and Bellamy stared down at his hands, a mixture of longing and relief and guilt floating through him.  Guilt that he wasn’t there for Clarke.  Relief that she seemed to be doing more than okay.  Longing to be with her again.

When he looked back up, Raven was staring at him with a wide grin.

“Clarke says to tell you—”

“I heard,” Bellamy interrupted, rolling his eyes.  “Thanks.”

 

 **118 APF**  

“What are you doing?”

Clarke looked away from the wall for long enough to glance briefly over her shoulder at Murphy.  “We need to start thinking about names.”

She listened as he crossed the room to stand behind her.

“And you’re writing this on the bedroom wall because…?”

Clarke rolled her eyes and tossed him a Sharpie.  “Because I don’t want to waste paper.”  She squinted at a name she’d written, second guessing it.  “What do you think about Benjamin?”

“That Benjamin Blake-Griffin is too many Bs,” he told her.  “Bellamy’s already got that alliteration covered.”

Clarke rolled her eyes, but crossed out the name.

“What’re the rules?” he asked, and Clarke turned to grin at him.

“No one from real life,” she told him.  “Dead or alive.  It’s too weird.”

He nodded.  “Fair.  Anything else?”

“Anything can go on the wall, but I get final veto.”  She turned back to the wall, to the names she’d already written.  “And Bellamy really likes mythology, so if you can think of any of that kinda name, that’d be good.”

“Got it.”  Murphy uncapped his pen, and set about scribbling a name on the wall.  Clarke rolled her eyes.

“I’m not naming my kid Troy Bolton,” she told him, pushing past him to cross it out.

“Why not?” Murphy wanted to know.  “Troy Bolton Blake-Griffin has a nice ring to it.  Plus your kid’ll always have their head in the game.”

Clarke rolled her eyes.  “Troy never had his head in the game, and you know that,” she pointed out.  She stuck out her hand.  “Give me back your pen.  I’ve changed my mind.  I don’t want your help anymore.”

Murphy laughed, his hand darting out to draw a line down Clarke’s face before handing the pen back.  She swore at him as she swiped at her face, and he ignored her in favour of flopping down on the bed.

“What about Donna?” he suggested, and Clarke gave him an unimpressed look before turning and writing it on the wall.  “Or Dynamo, after their band.  Or you could just go from there and full on name your kid Dynamite.  Ooo, or name it Jean Valjean.  Actually, don’t name it that.  It’ll get them arrested.  Oh!  I have the perfect name!”

 

**142 APF**

_“You are the dancing queen, young and sweet, only seventeen!”_

Echo slammed her sword against the wall of the rocket.  “Can we turn this racket off now?”

He wouldn’t say it, but Bellamy kinda agreed.  As much as he loved Clarke, she and Murphy were not good singers.  Having their voices blaring through the speakers all day because Raven preferred to work with sound in the background and they couldn’t figure out how to only play something in one room was really getting old.

“Fine.”  Raven picked up her tablet and hit a few buttons.  Clarke and Murphy’s voices cut off for a moment, before returning with a different tune.

_“Coach said to fake right and break left, watch out for the pick and keep an eye on the defence.”_

Raven held out a hand.  “Hand me the big screwdriver that looks like a star.”

Bellamy ignored her tone as he dug through the tool kit.  Whenever he told her she sounded like she was talking to a baby, she reverted back to technical terms, and then they just yelled at each other and nothing actually got fixed.  He could deal with being talked to like a child.

“That’s not what I meant,” Echo pointed out, but left the rocket with a huff.

Bellamy handed Raven the screwdriver, and subtly picked up the tablet to turn the volume down a bit.

His only really useful skill for life on the Ark as it was now was sewing, and he’d finished turning the spare sheets into clothes weeks ago.  Monty and Harper dealt with the algae, and Raven was good with tech.  Echo hadn’t really found any skills that translated well to living in space yet, so for now the two of them were glorified assistants.

They still hadn’t gotten anywhere with fixing the radio, so Raven had decided to set it aside for a while and start trying to get the rocket ready to take them back down in five years.  Or five years and a hundred and ninety nine days, as it was now.

He really wasn’t sure what she was doing right now, but she was half buried under a seat and kept barking for new tools.

“So,” she said, and Bellamy turned his attention to Raven’s feet.  “What’s the first thing you’re going to do when we get back?”

He didn’t even have to think about it.  “Hug Clarke and never let go.  And then hug our kid and never let go of them either.”

Raven yawned exaggeratedly from under the seat.  “Boring,” she declared.  “I’m going to eat an entire deer.”

Bellamy laughed.  “What if there aren’t any cooked deer?” he asked.  “Or any dead ones in general?”

“Doesn’t matter.”  Raven paused, and Bellamy wondered if the loud squeaking coming from whatever she was working on was a good thing or a bad thing.  “I’ll catch the thing with my bare hands and eat it alive.  Fuck, I miss meat.  Hand me the big wrench.

Bellamy stuck the big wrench into her grabbing hand, and was going to tell her how much he missed meat, too, when Clarke and Murphy singing about getting their heads in the game cut out as a non-singing Clarke came on the radio.

_“Hey guys.  I know I already called this morning, but Murphy’s a little shit so now I have to call again.”_

She yelled the part about Murphy being a little shit, so Bellamy could only assume that he was somewhere nearby.  Raven snorted and slid out from under the seat.  Everyone was always more than game to hear how, exactly, Murphy was being a little shit this time.

_“Apparently he’s fucking paranoid and keeps looking at all my ultrasounds way too often.”_

A faint voice came in the background, just loud enough for Bellamy to make out what sounded like, _“I’m sorry if I want your baby to be healthy.”_

 _“And because he looks at them way too often,”_ Clarke continued, as if she didn’t hear Murphy, _“he’s noticed things we’d decided we weren’t going to notice, and he can’t keep a fucking secret.”_

Another faint, shouted apology came from the distance, and Bellamy rolled his eyes.  Whatever this was that Murphy had noticed about the baby, it couldn’t be bad.  Clarke wouldn’t be acting like this if it was something bad.  Bellamy didn’t know anything about ultrasounds—honestly, he’d never even seen one and had no idea what you could tell from them besides that there was a baby in the first place—but he figured it was something along the lines of the baby’s eye or hair colour.  Something that could be a surprise but could also be found out.

_“Anyway, now we now, so now you get to know.  Surprise!  We’re having a daughter, Bellamy!  The baby’s a girl!  That’s all I wanted to say, so peace out.”_

_“—makes me feel so right.  Should I go for it?  Better shake this.  Yike—”_

Raven turned off the song, and Bellamy met her grin with his own.

“We’re having a daughter,” he repeated, feeling tears gather in his eyes.  Honestly, he didn’t care either way what gender their baby was, but now that he knew?  He was going to have a little girl.  A little girl that was half him and half Clarke, that he’d get to meet and hold in his arms in five years.

“Don’t you fucking dare cry on me, Blake,” Raven warned, even as she wrapped him in a hug.  “Congrats.”

There was a loud bang followed by a cheer from somewhere else in the Ark, and Bellamy laughed as Raven groaned.

“Can’t believe I lost that part of the baby pool,” she grumbled.  “Echo’s going to rub that in my face forever.”

“And Harper and I aren’t?”

Raven shrugged, extracting herself from the hug to slide back under the seat.  “You’ll be less obnoxious about it than Echo,” she pointed out.  “Remember when she won crazy eights?”

“I do.”  Echo hadn’t shut up about it for weeks, even as she lost every game they’d played since then.  There was no way she’d let this go.  At least Bellamy hadn’t bet against her this time.

“Hand me a bolt.”  Raven’s grabby hand was out again, and Bellamy couldn’t keep his smile to himself as he searched the floor for what he was pretty sure he remembered a bolt to be.

A girl.  They were having a girl.

He found a bolt and stuck it in Raven’s hand, only for her to immediately throw it back at him.

“That is a fucking washer, Bellamy.”

 

**156 APF**

Clarke wasn’t in bed when Murphy woke up.  She hadn’t been sleeping as much as she should.  Apparently having a basketball sized bump coming out of her stomach made laying down uncomfortable.

He lay there for a few more minutes until he’d fully woken up, then slipped out of bed and threw on a shirt and a hoodie.  It was too cold in the lab first thing in the morning.

He heard her as he approached the kitchen, humming along to whatever song she had playing on the speakers.  She didn’t notice as he came in, and he leaned against the doorway and tried to figure out what the brown lump she was fussing over was.

He gave up after a minute or so.

“What’s that?”

She jumped, spinning to face him, her hand reaching for her gunless hip before her brain caught up to the fact that it was just him.

She grinned at him, holding up the lump on the plate.

“Angel food cake!” she declared, though Murphy still wasn’t entirely sure there was actually a cake under all that frosting.  “Happy birthday!”

Murphy blinked at her for a moment, the words taking longer to register than they should’ve.  “It’s my birthday?” he finally asked, and Clarke rolled her eyes, replacing the cake on the counter.

“Murphy, we’ve known each other for forever,” she pointed out, crossing her arms.  “Do you really think I’d forget your birthday?”

“No.”  Murphy shook his head, pushing off the wall to come join her.  “I mean, it’s 156 days after Praimfaya.  Other than that, I have no idea what the date is.”

Clarke nodded in understanding, awkwardly lifting herself up onto a barstool.  “Right,” she agreed.  “Honestly, me neither, but the date’s on one of the computers.  I noticed it the other day, and realized it was almost your birthday.”  She nudged the cake closer to him and handed him a fork.  “So happy birthday.”

“Thanks.”  Murphy accepted the fork with a grin, and bumped it against hers before stabbing it into the cake.  “Happy second anniversary of coming to the ground, too, then.”

He popped the bite of cake into his mouth, and hummed in satisfaction.  It was actually good.  Clarke usually burnt the popcorn, but apparently she could make a mean angel food cake.  It took him a few bites to notice that Clarke wasn’t eating, and was instead just staring at him.

“What?”

Clarke shook herself out of it and took a piece of the cake with her fork.  “They didn’t send us down on your birthday.”

“Yeah, they did.”  Murphy paused, licking the icing off his fork as he considered her.  “Didn’t you literally just say you’d never forget my birthday?”

“I was in solitary,” Clarke pointed out.  “It’s not like I had a calendar.  I had a rough estimate of what day it was, but it wasn’t exact.  Holy shit.  Did they actually send us down on your birthday?”

“Yup.”  Murphy stuck another piece of cake in his mouth.  “Definitely thought they were taking me to get floated when they came in.  I mean, I lit the Chancellor’s quarters on fire.  That’s not something they’re gonna pardon.”  He paused, taking another bite.  “They gave me the choice, actually.  I guess since I was technically an adult they couldn’t just stick me in the Dropship without asking.  So I got to choose if I wanted to die by getting shot into space or by crash landing on a planet and then dying from radiation if I managed to survive that.”

Clarke grimaced.  “Jeez.”  She stared at him for a moment longer, before violently stabbing her fork into the cake.  “Well, I can guarantee this birthday’s gonna be better than that one.  We’ve already got cake for breakfast.”

Murphy laughed.  “Cake is definitely better than death,” he agreed.

“Fuck yeah it is.”

*********

Clarke was lying across the couch, and Murphy was rubbing her feet.  She’d told him he didn’t have to, it _was_ his birthday after all and her feet were all gross and bloated, but he’d told her to shut up and watch the movie.

They were marathoning High School Musical, and then they were going to watch both Mamma Mia! movies.  He’d made her promise not to cry, because it was his birthday, and she’d agreed even though they both knew there was no way she’d be able to keep that promise.

As far as birthdays went, it was a pretty good one.

“What were you doing last year on your birthday?” she wondered.

Murphy glanced over at her.  “I don’t know,” he admitted.  “What were we even doing a year ago?  Was that the whole City of Light shit?”

Clarke shrugged.  She honestly had no idea either.  “Maybe?”

“What about you?”

“I don’t know.”  Clarke turned back to the TV, watching Sharpay try to sabotage Gabriella.  “Trying to figure out how to save the human race, probably.”

Murphy nodded.  “Usual birthday stuff, then.”

Clarke kicked him in the wrist for that and rolled her eyes.

“I’m gonna have a kid by my next birthday,” she mused, turning her head back to look at Murphy.  “That’s insane.”

Murphy’s hands stilled on her feet.  “I should’ve had a kid by mine,” he said, and Clarke closed her eyes, feeling like a total dick for bringing the topic up.

“Murphy,” she started, trying to think of how to comfort him this time, but he waved her off.

“Can you reach the cake?” he asked, gesturing at the coffee table.

She gripped his wrist and twisted sideways, half hanging off the couch, but managed to grab the plate.  They rested it awkwardly on her belly, and dug in again.

“This much cake is probably bad for us,” Clarke pointed out as she shoveled it into her mouth.

Murphy laughed.  “This much cake is _definitely_ bad for us.”

*********

_“So we discovered today that we don’t know when any of you were born.”_

Bellamy glanced up from his dinner, sharing a confused look with the others.  Why did it matter that Clarke didn’t know when any of them were born?  Maybe it was because she was in her last trimester—Bellamy had no idea what that meant besides it being the last part before the baby was born and the fact that it apparently sucked—and just had babies and birthdates on the brain?

_“Because all of you are losers from different grades or weren’t born on the Ark.”_

“I love it when they call us together,” Echo sighed.  “So much more entertaining.”

 _“Exactly,”_ Clarke agreed, and Raven gasped in false offence at being called a loser _.  “So this is just kind of a blanket statement to all of you.  Ready?”_

There was a brief pause, apparently for Murphy to agree to being ready, and then they both started to sing.

_“Happy birthday to you!  Happy birthday to you!  Happy birthday dear BellaHarperRaveMontyEcho!  Happy birthday to you!”_

Bellamy was grinning, and Raven squeezed his hand.  Even Echo looked up from polishing her sword to smirk up at the speakers

 _“Also you should all radio back to sing that to me, since it’s_ actually _my birthday today.”_   Clarke snorted in the background.  _“Just a suggestion.”_

The radio clicked off and they all just sat there grinning like idiots.  Harper glanced over at Monty, a gleam in her eye, then started singing.

“Happy birthday to you!”

Bellamy laughed, and they all joined in for the rest.

“Happy birthday to you!  Happy birthday dear Murphy!  Happy birthday to you!”

“Never thought I’d call Murphy dear,” Monty grumbled, a grin on his face as he dug back into his algae.

 

 **189 APF**  

Murphy was almost asleep when Clarke groaned loudly, shifting against him.

“What?” he murmured against her.

Instead of responding, her fingers threaded through his on the arm he had wrapped around her, moving his hand to the side of her belly.

“Shit,” he muttered, and Clarke sighed in agreement.  “She’s really kicking up a storm, huh?”

“Yes.”  Clarke’s fingers left his, but he didn’t move his hand, the feeling of the baby kicking almost comforting.  Of course, there was a significant amount of Clarke between him and the baby’s kicks, so he was sure it was less comforting and more annoying for her.

“Why did she choose now to have a dance party?” Clarke wondered.  “Couldn’t she have had a dance party while I was awake?  I’m not gonna be able to fall asleep.”

Murphy grinned but forced himself to keep in any laughter.  Clarke would not appreciate him laughing at her.

“Shh, baby,” he whispered instead, rubbing his hand against her stomach.  He could almost swear he made out the shape of a foot.  That could not be comfortable for Clarke.  “You have to let your mommy get some sleep or she’s gonna be cranky tomorrow.”

Clarke elbowed him in the ribs, laughing softly.  “Shut up.”

They lay there in silence a while, the baby not letting up on her kicking.  Clarke’s hand bumped into his on her belly after a while, and Murphy could practically hear her thinking.  He was more than tempted to ask what it was she was thinking about, but kept quiet, knowing she’d share it if she wanted to.

And she did, in a whisper so quiet he could barely make out her words even as close as he was.

“What if I’m a bad mom?”

“Clarke.”  Murphy moved his hand, wrapping his arm around her again and tugging her closer.  “You’re not gonna be a bad mom.”

Clarke let out a breath through her nose, almost but not quite a laugh.  “You don’t know that,” she told him.  “My mom had my dad floated and had me arrested as a traitor.  She’s not exactly the best role model in the universe.”

“You’re not your mom.”  Murphy sighed, releasing her to push himself up so he could properly look at her.  “You’re not Abby, okay?  Yeah, she did some horrible things, but she thought she was protecting you, and she’s done a whole lot to do that since she’s been on Earth, too.  Maybe she’s not the best role model, but she’s not a terrible one either.  And it doesn’t even matter, cause you’re not her.”

Clarke stared at him for a moment before looking away.  “Right,” she agreed.  “I’m worse.”

“Clarke.”

“No, Murphy.”  Clarke sat up, forcing him back so she could do so.  “I’m Wanheda.  The Commander of fucking Death.  What part of that makes people think _oh yeah, she’ll be a great mom_?”

“Let’s see.”  Murphy held up his hand, counting off on his fingers.  “You were literally the only person to actually help everyone while we were at the Dropship.  You and Bellamy were basically parents to a hundred teenagers for a while and were pretty good at it.  Not to mention that every single decision you’ve made since they sent us down here has been to keep everyone else alive, no matter what happens to you.  All of that seems like things that a good mom would do.  Do you want me to keep going?  Cause I can keep going.”

Clarke looked away.  “I’ve killed so many people,” she repeated, her hand running over her belly.

“We all have,” Murphy pointed out.  “At least when you’ve killed, it’s been to protect people.”

She sighed, leaning back against the pillows.  “What’s she going to think of me?”  Her gaze returned to him.  “Was this a stupid idea, Murphy?  I have no idea what you’re supposed to do with a baby.  I’ll probably accidentally kill her, or mess her up so bad she’ll hate me.”

“Hey.”  He shifted on the bed, settling next to her so he could wrap an arm around her.  “You’re not going to mess her up, okay?  She’s going to be the most badass baby in the universe.  You’re not going to kill her, accidentally or otherwise, and she’s not going to hate you.  I promise.”

Clarke sighed, leaning into him.  “You can’t promise any of that.”

“Then I promise to do everything I can to make sure none of that happens.  Is that better?”  Clarke didn’t say anything, but he felt her nod a few moments later.  He gave her a tight squeeze.  “You’re gonna be a great mom, Clarke.  You might not believe that yet, but I do.”

They were silent a while, the only interruption when Clarke gasped in pain.  “Fuck, that was my rib.”

He watched as she massaged her stomach, trying to ease the baby’s foot down into safer territory.

“Already being a pain,” Murphy mused, grinning at her.  “Just like her dad.”

Clarke laughed.  “Fucking Bellamy,” she agreed.

It seemed the baby wasn’t going to calm down anytime soon, and Murphy came to terms with another sleepless night.  At least baby kicking was a better reason for not sleeping than nightmares, he supposed.

It was so long before Clarke spoke again that he’d almost thought she’d fallen asleep with her head on his shoulder.  But her fingers were tracing over her baby bump, and her breath hadn’t evened out, so he knew she hadn’t.

“I almost killed myself.”  It was quiet, more like she was thinking out loud than actually talking to him.  “A couple of times, after Mount Weather.  I’d killed so many people, so many innocent people, and I’d left camp, and I hated myself.  I had a gun, and I tried a few times, but I could never pull the trigger.  I’m glad now that I didn’t, but I wanted to.”

Murphy hadn’t known any of that.  To be honest, he still didn’t fully know what went down at and after Mount Weather, and he’d never gotten the courage to ask anyone.  From the way Clarke spoke, though, he was pretty sure she’d never told that to anyone.

She didn’t seem to want anything from her admission.  It was probably just one more thing they shared and never spoke of again.  He didn’t have to say anything, and she wouldn’t hold it against him if he didn’t.

And yet…

“So did I.”

He felt Clarke’s eyes snap up to him, but he didn’t look at her, keeping his own trained on her now still hands.

“When I left with Jaha, that whole time sucked so much.  I met Emori, which makes it all worth it, but everything sucked and she did hold me hostage at knifepoint, so like that kinda sucked too.”  A small smile stretched across his face at the memory.  “And then Jaha and ALIE locked me in the lighthouse bunker.  I was in there for three months, entirely alone.  I went more than a little crazy, and even death seemed better sometimes than being in there for another minute.  I tried a handful of times, but I could never follow through.”

They were quiet again, and Clarke’s hand found his, squeezing tightly.

“I’m glad you didn’t,” she whispered, and he looked at her, matching her soft smile with one of his own.

“Me too,” he whispered back, and squeezed her hand.  “And I’m glad you didn’t, too.”

 

**194 APF**

Clarke was laying upside down on the couch, her feet in the air and her head dangling just above the floor.

“Can’t you just take her out now?” she whined.

“No.”  Murphy didn’t glance away from the TV.  “Sit up before you pass out.”

“But she’s thirty seven weeks,” Clarke argued, ignoring both him and the blood that was rushing to her head.  “She’ll be fine.  Just cut me open and take her out.”

“No.”

“Mur _phy_.”  Clarke groaned and flipped back over the right way.  It was one hundred percent because she could better make her case if she was face to face with Murphy, and not because there was too much blood in her brain.  “Please.  I’m done.  I need this baby out.”

Murphy sighed and turned her way.  “And, like I’ve told you the last six weeks, I’m not giving you a c-section unless it’s absolutely necessary,” he repeated.  “And it’s not.  You and the baby are both perfectly healthy, and your chances of not having unnecessary complications are better if you wait for it to come instead of making me cut the baby out of you when I’ve never done anything like that before.”

Clarke huffed and rolled her eyes.  “I thought you’re supposed to be a doctor,” she grumbled.

“Well, I’m not.”  He sounded dejected, and even as frustrated with him as she was, she had to agree.  If the Ark hadn’t been dying, if they’d never gotten arrested, they’d both be doctors by now.  Instead they were just a couple of losers who hadn’t finished med school but somehow managed to survive an apocalypse.

Clarke pouted for a few minutes, stewing in how uncomfortable she was all the time and how she just wanted the baby to be out and to not be pregnant anymore.

As she stewed, a part of her was pointing out she wasn’t exactly being nice to Murphy.  Really all he was doing was saying he didn’t want to accidentally kill her.  That was rather nice of him, especially considering this was Murphy.  Yes, she didn’t want to be pregnant anymore, but she was pretty sure being dead would be worse than being pregnant.

She sighed loudly, giving up for now.  She could try to convince him to cut her open later.

“If you get me and this baby through this alive,” she said, poking Murphy with her toe as she laid down across the couch, “I will personally give you a doctorate.”

Murphy glanced over at her, an amused smirk on his face.  “You have that right now?” he asked, and Clarke shrugged.

“I think I’ve got as much a right as anybody,” she said, and Murphy laughed.

“Okay,” he agreed.  “Then if you and the baby both get through this alive, I’ll give you both doctorates, too.  We’ll have a whole graduation ceremony.”

Clarke laughed, poking him again with her foot.  “You can’t give the baby a doctorate,” she pointed out, poking him again until he grabbed her foot.

“Why not?”

“This baby is half _Bellamy_.”  Clarke poked him with the other foot for emphasis.  “Giving her a doctorate as a baby for no reason will just go to her head.”

Murphy laughed.  “Considering the other half is _you_ , I get your point.”  She screwed up her face and poked him again, and he grabbed that foot too.  “So it won’t be a real doctorate.  Just an extra first name.”

Clarke stared at him for a moment, before laughing and struggling against his hold on her feet.  “So, what?  We like hyphenate it?”  Murphy grinned at her and shrugged, and she laughed again.  “That’s ridiculous.”

Murphy shrugged again and turned back to the TV.  “But is it more or less ridiculous than giving a baby a doctorate?”

 

**211 APF**

Clarke stared down at the floor.

“Murphy!”

He came running in, and she caught his eye, her own wide.

“What is it?” he asked, and she knew the moment he noticed the puddle growing around her feet.  “What is that?  Did you spill something?”

Clarke shook her head.  “I think my water broke.”

* * *

  _We packed up to move in, we're painting your room_  
_I can't believe I'll be holding you soon_  
_Safe in my arms when you finally come_  
_You belong, you belong_  
_You belong, you belong_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Duh duh DUHHHHH!
> 
> Comments and kudos inspire me to get more writing done!
> 
> Come follow me on Tumblr at probably-voldemort
> 
> See you (hopefully) next week!


	6. i lay my life before you

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Surprise!! It's a day early!!
> 
> Merry Christmas to anyone reading this who celebrates Christmas, and Happy Tuesday to everyone else!!
> 
> I am currently in Mexico, most likely drinking margaritas on the beach or at the swim up bar in one of the resort's pools (why is this a thing??? idk but I feel like by the time this is posted I'll be loving it), and as such this is a prerecorded message. I hope you're all having a lovely winter (or summer, for those of you below the equator) and that everything is going well.
> 
> This is not a full chapter. I mean, technically it's a full chapter but like it's very much not everything I planned to have in chapter six. I didn't have enough time to write it all before we had to catch the plane, but I wanted to have something to post this week so here we are! This also means there won't be an update next week, because I get back on Tuesday (I think??? I honestly have no idea??? What are days???) so like I defs won't be getting it done in time to update on time. So the next chapter will be coming as soon as I have a chance to write it.
> 
> Also, full disclosure, I have never given birth or been present while someone is giving birth, so please forgive anything that's not quite accurate.
> 
> Finally, yes the song for this chapter is from Clarke and Murphy's fav movie. Couldn't go through this fic without including some Mamma Mia! ;)
> 
> Please enjoy :)

_I’ll carry you all the way_  
_And you will choose the day_  
_When you’re prepared to greet me_  
_I’ll be a good mum, I swear_  
_You’ll see how much I care_  
_When you meet me_

* * *

 

**211 APF**

Clarke braced herself against the wall, breathing through another contraction and trying not to scream at Murphy again.  This had been going on for way too long.  Murphy was hovering near her, and had stopped telling her it was okay after she’d almost bit his head off.

“Check me again,” she told him when the contraction ended, pushing past him to head back for towards the mat of towels and pillows they’d made on the floor of the lab.  She was not delivering on that metal table, and there was no way she was delivering in their bed.  This was the best thing.

“I checked less than five minutes ago,” Murphy pointed out, trailing behind her, and Clarke ignored him.  He was wrong.  It had definitely been more than five minutes.  That contraction alone had lasted at least half an hour.

“Check me again,” she repeated, lowering herself onto the mat, and Murphy sighed and complied.

“Still two centimetres,” he told her, and Clarke felt like she could scream.

So she did.

When she stopped, she was panting, trying to catch her breath.

“I can’t still be two centimetres,” she snapped.  “It’s been six fucking hours.”

If she’d been looking at Murphy instead of trying to stand up on her own, she would have noticed that he also looked and seemed to feel like they’d been doing this for too long already, like he also wished she was more than two centimetres.

But she wasn’t looking at him, and so she didn’t see.

“Let me help,” he said instead, taking her arms and helping pull her to her feet despite her quiet grumbling that she could do it for herself.

She steadied herself on her feet and glared at him, before starting to do some squats.  He stared for a moment then turned away, face red, and Clarke refused to let herself also be embarrassed when she remembered she wasn’t actually wearing any pants.

“What are you doing?”

“Squats.”  Clarke did another one, trying to go closer to the floor.  “Maybe it’ll help.”

“Maybe,” Murphy agreed, and Clarke rolled her eyes when he started fluffing pillows to avoid looking at her.  It wasn’t like he hadn’t seen all this already, when he’d been checking her dilation.  It wasn’t like he wouldn’t see all this so many more times before the baby decided to finally come.  She didn’t know what he had to be embarrassed about.

Another contraction hit, and she halted her squats with a gasp of pain, and then he was looking at her again, leading her to a wall to lean against and rubbing her back.

 

**212 APF**

Murphy glanced up at Clarke from between her legs, trying not to let his relief seep into his face.

“Seven,” he told her.  “You’re seven centimetres.”

“Oh, thank fuck,” Clarke groaned, and held out her arms.  Murphy took off his gloves and helped her stand, not even bothering to suggest putting her pants back on.  It’d been over twelve hours since the last time she’d worn them, and he was pretty sure she wouldn’t be wearing them again at least until the baby was here.

He watched, amused and exhausted, as she started doing jumping jacks.  He had no idea if any of the exercises she’d been doing were helping at all, but neither of them had slept in what felt like years, and Clarke had been in labour for forever.  If she thought something was going to speed this thing along, he wasn’t going to stop her.

“I’m gonna get us something to eat,” he told her.  How long had it been since the last time they’d eaten?  He didn’t know.  It had definitely been too long, though.  “What do you want?”

Clarke told him she couldn’t fucking eat was he insane?  So he made himself a sandwich and grabbed some crackers for her, revelling in the calmness of the kitchen for a moment.  He ran a hand through his hair, not caring that it was definitely an absolute mess by now.

A string of curses came from the lab, signalling that Clarke was having another contraction, so Murphy tucked the crackers under his arm and bit into his sandwich as he made his way back to their thrown together delivery room.

*********

Clarke yelled.  Everything hurt and she was dripping with sweat and she was pretty sure dying would hurt less.  Yelling didn’t make it hurt less, and it didn’t help the baby come out, but it was satisfying.

So she yelled.

The contraction finished and she collapsed back against the pillows.  Murphy offered her the cup of ice chips and she glared at him until he put it back down.

“You’re doing good, Clarke,” he told her.  “A few more pushes and then it’s gonna be done.”

Fuck if he knew it was really almost over.  She was planning to argue with him, because arguing and yelling at Murphy felt almost as good as just yelling, but then another contraction hit.

When it was over, she let herself catch her breath before pushing up enough to glare at Murphy again.

“Fuck,” she told him, her voice raw from all the yelling.  “This is the absolute fucking worst.  Bellamy sucks.”

“Bellamy sucks,” Murphy agreed.  He was sitting back, looking almost as exhausted as she felt, and that wasn’t fucking fair.  He wasn’t the one pushing a fucking baby out of her fucking vagina.  He wasn’t allowed to be tired.

She must have said that out loud, because Murphy sighed and took off his gloves and stood up to cross the lab.  Clarke frowned after him, following him with her eyes and wondering what the fuck he was doing.

He had the detachable transmitter for the radio in his hand when he returned and handed it to her.

“Bellamy sucks,” he repeated, settling back near her feet again.  “Yell at him instead of me.”

*********

Bellamy looked up from the parts Raven had him sorting when the first yell came through, fear striking his heart.  It was Clarke, it was definitely Clarke, and she sounded like she was in so much pain, but why?  What was going on?

Raven was on the other side of the control room, and met his eye before moving over to sit near him.  She took his hand without saying anything, and they sat there as dread filled them.  The others came in just as quietly, settling on the floor.

Her yell cut off, and then she was just panting, and Bellamy wasn’t sure if it was better or worse.

_“You’re good, Clarke.  So close.”_

“What the fuck?” Monty whispered, and Bellamy had to agree.  Murphy hadn’t cleared anything up.  Why would he tell Clarke she was good when she so clearly wasn’t?

 _“Fuck.  You.  Bellamy.”_   Clarke sounded wrecked, her voice rasping at the words around pants.  _“Twenty.  Seven.  Fucking.  Hours.  I have been in fucking labour for twenty seven fucking hours.”_

Bellamy felt his heart stop, and he felt Raven squeeze his hand.

“She’s having the baby,” Harper whispered, her eyes wide.

 _“I hate you so fucking much,”_ Clarke continued, and Bellamy closed his eyes.  He didn’t blame her.  He’d hate himself too.  He didn’t remember everything about when Octavia was born, but he remembered enough to know that anything Clarke was going through right now was not enjoyable.  _“I—fuck.  Murphy.”_

Murphy’s name was a pained whine, and Bellamy flinched as it turned into another yell.

 _“I got you,”_ Murphy said, his voice softer than it usually was.  _“Come on, Clarke.  I need you to push.”_

Bellamy pushed down the jealousy that bubbled up, that it was Murphy who was there for her instead of him.  It didn’t matter right now.  The baby was going to born either way.  He’d get to meet her in five years.  All that mattered right now was that Clarke had someone, and Murphy actually knew what he was doing.

Clarke was going to be fine and their daughter was going to be fine and he was going to see them both in five years.

Clarke stopped yelling, and Murphy spoke again, his words rushed and mixed with a tinge of excitement.

_“Clarke, you’re so close, okay?  I can see her head.”_

Bellamy gasped, and Harper grabbed his other arm.  Her head.  His baby’s head.  Murphy could see his baby’s head.

_“Just a couple more and it’ll be over, okay?”_

_“No.”_   It was half a sob, and it broke Bellamy’s heart.  _“No.  I don’t wanna do this anymore, Murphy.  I quit.  I’m done.  I’m gonna go take a nap.  We’re not gonna have the baby today.  You can do a c-section another day, okay?  I’m done.  Help me get up.”_

 _“Clarke.”_   Murphy was quiet, soothing.  _“Clarke, hey.  You can’t quit, okay?  This baby isn’t gonna wait.  You know that.”_

 _“No.  I—ah—I can’t.”_   Clarke was pleading, her voice tinged in pain. _“I can’t, Murphy.  I can’t do this.”_

_“Yes, you can.  I’m here, Clarke.  I’m not going anywhere.  Just a couple big pushes and you get to hold your baby, okay?”_

Clarke was yelling again, screaming, and Bellamy felt like he was going to pass out or puke.  Maybe both.

 _“Her head’s out!”_ Murphy yelled over her, and Bellamy stopped breathing.  _“Come on, Clarke.  One more.  One more big push and it’s done.”_

Clarke’s scream was louder than the others had been, echoing off the walls of the Ark.

_“Yes!  Yes.  Oh my god.  Oh my god, Clarke.  She’s here.  She’s here.  You’re done.”_

Harper shook his arm, grinning at him, but the silence that followed was only filled with Clarke’s panting, and it made goosebumps rise on Bellamy’s arms.

“It’s too quiet,” Echo said, voicing what Bellamy was thinking.  “Why isn’t she crying?”

“Fuck,” Raven breathed, holding Bellamy’s hand tighter.

Clarke seemed to realize something was wrong too.  _“Murphy?”_

 _“Come on,”_ Murphy pleaded.  _“Come on, baby.  Breathe for me.  Come on.”_

No one breathed on the Ark, and the seconds stretched on so long that tears started to gather in Bellamy’s eyes.

They fell at the sound of the first cry, the first sound of the life he’d helped create.

_“Here she is, Clarke.  Hold out your arms.”_

_“Oh—”_

The radio cut off, and Bellamy assumed Clarke had dropped it in favour of holding the baby, _their_ baby.

“I’m a dad,” he whispered, feeling a grin spread across his face despite the tears.  “I’m a dad.”

*********

Clarke was trying not to fall asleep.  She was more exhausted than she’d felt in a long time, but she couldn’t sleep until she saw her baby again, until Murphy brought her back after washing all the blood and guts off her. 

It was almost unnerving, really, when her baby was born covered in black.  She hadn’t really thought about it, but she supposed it made sense, with the nightblood and everything.

She was lying in their bed now, and it was both the most and least comfortable thing she’d ever felt.  Everything hurt, and she wanted to sleep for at least the next year.

Of course, the fact that they had a newborn baby now meant that sleeping for the next few hours wasn’t even guaranteed.

“See?  I told you I was bringing you back to your mommy.”

Clarke forced her eyes open, and felt a smile stretch across her face as Murphy walked into the room.  Her daughter was cradled in his arms, swaddled in a blanket.  They’d cut up a bunch of fabric into cloth diapers a few weeks ago, solving the lack of diapers in any of the storage, and they’d have to figure out how to make something for her to wear at some point.  There were no baby clothes, and neither of them had any sewing skills outside of stitching skin back together, but luckily there was no one around to judge what her baby was wearing.

The baby was so small, and the bundle that Murphy handed her was mostly blanket.  She was asleep, and Clarke brushed her finger along her cheek.  She felt the bed dip as Murphy collapsed on his half.

“Hi,” she whispered, leaning down to press a kiss to her daughter’s pink forehead.  “I’m your mommy.  I love you, okay?”

She held her for a few moments, watching as her daughter’s eyes darted around beneath her eyelids.  Her own were drooping lower and lower, and it was when she yawned that Murphy nudged her.

“We should put her in bed and go to sleep,” he told her quietly, his words slurring with the sleep that was trying to take him over, too.

Clarke agreed, and Murphy slowly rose to take back the baby and tuck her into the basket they’d outfitted for her for a crib, and Clarke was half asleep by the time he crawled back in bed.

“Not tonight,” she whispered when he moved closer.  She hurt too much to cuddle right now.  She was asleep before he’d retreated to his side of the bed.

*********

The baby was whimpering, and Clarke started to move, but Murphy whispered for her to stay.  She’d just fed her not too long ago.  He’d get her back to sleep.

He picked up the baby from the basket she’d been sleeping in, shushing her quietly as he tucked her against his chest.  He bounced her gently as he moved out of the room, wandering through the hallways until she’d fallen back to sleep.

He was exhausted.  He was sure Clarke was even more exhausted, and he was pretty sure it’d be a long time before they got a full night of sleep.  But he couldn’t bring himself to go back to bed just yet.

He’d ended up in the lab, and found himself sitting in front of the radio, picking up the transmitter.

“Hey, Bellamy,” he said, gazing down at the baby.  He’d rested her between his thighs, and she was so small she didn’t reach his knees.  “Clarke had the radio earlier, but I don’t know what you heard.  Your baby’s here.  You have a daughter.”  The baby squirmed, and Murphy brushed his finger along her face.  “She’s so small.  She’s the smallest person I’ve ever seen.  I mean, she’s regular baby sized.  I weighed and measured her.  But she’s so small.”

He paused, just watching the baby.  “She’s perfect, Bellamy.  I mean, right now her head’s kinda squished weird and her nose is on the side of her face, but that’s just from being born and will fix itself.  She’s got your hair, Bellamy.  So much thick black hair.  It might all fall out, though, so don’t get your hopes up.  She’s got blue eyes like Clarke’s, but a lot of babies are born with blue eyes and then they change colour.”  He laughed softly.  “So that’s a lot of information that doesn’t mean anything.

“Clarke’s doing good. She’s sleeping right now.  I just wanted to make sure she knew they were both fine, that your daughter was here.  If you can even hear us.  She wanted to call herself, but she was so tired.  She’ll call in the morning.”

The baby made a sort of cooing noise, and Murphy felt the side of his mouth twitch up even as his eyes filled with tears.

“I’m happy for you,” he whispered.  “I really am.  But this—I never got this with Max.  He would’ve been about this size when he was born, too, and I never got to see him.  I’ve held your baby, Bellamy.  I’ve heard her cry and watched her sleep and changed her diaper.  I never got to do any of that with my son.” 

He paused, sucking in a deep breath as his tears started to fall.

“Emori,” he croaked.  “Emori, I miss you so much.  I don’t—it wasn’t fair.  None of it was fair.  We should’ve gotten this.  We should’ve had a life and a family together, but we don’t.  We never will.”  He swallowed, wiping his eyes.  “I’d give anything to have you back, Emori.  Both of you.  But I can’t, and I need to accept that you’re gone.”

He paused, collecting himself, before he addressed Bellamy again.

“Bellamy, I’m going to do everything I can to keep your daughter safe,” he promised.  “I’m going to help Clarke keep her alive and you’re going to meet her one day, okay?  So just keep yourself alive and come back so you can meet her.”

He put down the radio with a shaky breath, and smiled at the baby as he lifted her back to his chest.

“Let’s get you back to bed.”

 

**213 APF**

_“Hey, Bellamy.  It’s been 213 days since Praimfaya.  Only 1612 until you can come back.  I had the baby yesterday, after twenty seven fucking hours of labour.  I’m never doing that again, but it was worth it, Bellamy.  Our daughter’s here, and she’s absolutely perfect._

_“She’s—oh, hey.  Are you awake?  You want to say hi to your daddy, huh?  He loves you very much, and he’s gonna be back with us so soon, okay?_

_“Bell, she’s amazing.  She’s everything.  She’s—you probably want to know her name, don’t you?  I would’ve let you help, but you wouldn’t call me back.  So I had to get Murphy to help._

_“I know you like mythology, and I don’t know a lot about it, but I do know there was a girl who brought the springtime.  It’s basically the underworld outside right now, so we thought it would be fitting.  Her middle names are a little…out there, but Murphy won rock-paper-scissors, and a society can’t function without rules, even if it’s a society of two people and a baby, so it is what it is.  And I kinda really like it?  Anyway, she’s got a badass name for a badass little girl, and she’s gonna keep her head in the game._

_“Persephone Dynamo Wildcat Blake-Griffin.  Yeah, that you, isn’t it?  Are you—you’re shitting.  God, that smells disgusting.  You’re lucky you’re so cute._

_“I have to go change a diaper, Bellamy.  I hope everything’s going well with you, and we’ll see you soon, okay?  Don’t be late.”_

 

* * *

_And finally it seems_  
_My lonely days are through_  
_I’ve been waiting for you_  
_Oh, I_ _’ve been waiting_  
_For you_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you're all having a fantastic holiday and will all have an amazing new year!
> 
> Hit me with those kudos and comments, and come find me on Tumblr at probably-voldemort!
> 
> See you all in 2019!!


	7. reach out for me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello hello hello!
> 
> Sorry for the wait on this one, guys. I didn't manage to get another chapter written (or even started) before I went to Mexico for a week, and then it was a bunch of family stuff and then straight back into uni and let's be real uni sucks the life out of you and you have zero energy for anything.
> 
> New alternate title for this fic: Two and a Half Cockroaches.
> 
> So the plan. As of right now, chapter 8 is almost finished (and has been split into two chapters because there's a lot more plot in there than I initially anticipated oops) so I've got next week's update almost ready to go. My hopes is to write a bunch whenever I have time and get a new chapter up every week. If that doesn't work out (because, as stated above, uni is basically an energy (and money) vampire), I'll drop to once every other week until I can get a store of finished chapters going again. My schedule for the semester is very colour coded and includes writing time in it, so hopefully I'll be able to stick to that.
> 
> Also most of my knowledge of babies is from google searches, so please don't get made if her age doesn't line up perfectly with what she's doing at that age. I'm pretty sure the milestones being hit at slightly wrong ages shouldn't detract from the story. Plus they're more guidelines really anyway, like my sister started walking at seven months and I did at eight months but my brother didn't until fourteen months. So like please suspend your disbelief. Also the same goes for medical stuff.
> 
> Also number two, I just realized I never put in anything about them making clothes for Persephone, so just assume that they did that at some point. She's definitely got a lot of lopsidedly sewn dresses, because they decided shirts and pants were too complicated.
> 
> Also number three, I'm sorry if this chapter seems a little jumpy around-y. There was a point I wanted to be at at the end of this chapter, and there was a lot of information I needed to get through to get to that point. So like this chapter covers a lot more time-wise than previous chapters and also covers a significant amount of information.
> 
> Also number four, sorry for there being so little space crew going on. I have specific plot points with them, but most of my outline for this fic is very Clarke and Murphy and Baby Persephone centric and I'm generally lacking inspiration for space crew scenes besides like them bickering and playing cards and generally a lot of the same stuff. So if you have any questions about what's going on up there you'd like answered or like scenarios you think would be cool for me to explore with them, drop them in your comments and I will potentially use them if they fit with the general plan I've got for them.
> 
> As it is, I am heading off to class, so please enjoy!

_There are days when you're feeling low_  
_Everything's impossible_  
_There's just one thing that you should know_  
_Every time when you lose hope_  
_You don't know where to go_  
_There's just one thing that you should know_  

* * *

 

**213 APF**

_“Presenting!  For one night and one night only!  Donna.  And.  The.  Dynamos!”_

Murphy’s exaggerated voice rang through the Ark, and everyone groaned.  Bellamy, however, barely noticed, absently playing with a makeshift poker chip.  It was really a piece of metal that Raven and Monty couldn’t find any use for.  His lips did twitch up, though, when Clarke’s voice joined Murphy’s for the song.

_“Super trouper lights are gonna find me, but I won’t feel blue, like I always do.  Cause somewhere in the crowd there’s you.”_

“Can’t we listen to something else?” Monty asked, putting down his cards to reach for the tablet that controlled their music.  “We’ve listened to this six times.”

“No.”  Echo tugged the tablet closer, raising it above her head.  “Today’s my day being the JD.  You had your day, like, three days ago, and I didn’t complain about your dumb music choices.”

“First, it’s DJ,” Harper corrected, rolling her eyes.  “And, second, you literally never stop complaining about everyone else’s music choices.”

Echo tucked the tablet under her chair.  “Doesn’t matter,” she declared.  “It’s still my day, and I say we’re listening to this.  It’s the only song where they actually sometimes follow the tune.”  She tossed some chips into the pile in the middle of the table.  “Go fish.  And, anyway, you have to admit the ending of this song is by far the best of any of them.”

“You have a point,” Raven agreed, studying her cards.  “Not about the ending, but they are actually somewhat okay at singing in this one.  I mean, don’t get me wrong.  If we had any other options, I would stop listening to Clarke and Murphy wail like dying cats in a heartbeat.  But this one doesn’t actively want to burst my eardrums.”  She added some chips to the pile.  “But it is still getting old when it’s all we’ve been listening to all day.”  She elbowed Bellamy in the side.  “Hey.”

Bellamy flinched, jerking himself out of his thoughts for long enough to glance down at his cards.  What were they playing again?  Poker?  Did he have anything in his hand?  He couldn’t focus on the cards enough to gauge how well he was doing, and tossed them onto the table instead.

“Fold.”

“Wow, Bellamy,” Harper laughed, adding some chips to the middle.  “You become a dad and lost all your poker skills at once, huh?”

“Shut up.”  Bellamy couldn’t be bothered to come up with a more eloquent retort, wondering whether Echo would budge on her DJ dictatorship for long enough that they could listen to Clarke’s message from that morning again.  Or even just the end of the one from the day before, when his daughter finally cried for the first time.

Persephone Dynamo Wildcat Blake-Griffin.  It was, in all honesty, kind of a ridiculous name, but he couldn’t think of a better one.

“Raven,” he said, interrupting whatever she was saying to Monty.  It was probably another dig at him and how his daughter seemed to have extracted his entire brain for herself, so he didn’t feel to bad about it.  “Do you think we’re going to get the radio going anytime soon?  What about getting a video system up?”

Raven sighed.  “It’s a mess,” she told him, her voice taking on the tone of someone talking to a toddler.  He didn’t blame her.  He did already know all of this.  “It could take years just to sort out the wires.  We’ll definitely have to use parts of the rocket to fix it after that.  And that’s just to maybe get the radio working, which I can’t even guarantee we can do at this point.  A video system is completely out of the question.”

Bellamy sighed.  He’d known that.  Raven and Monty had both told them all of that dozens of times.  And he’d accepted it.  But now…

Raven’s hand squeezed his shoulder.  “I know you want to see your kid,” she said, and Bellamy squeezed his eyes shut.  “But you’re gonna have to wait a while longer.”

Harper won the round, and Monty dealt another hand, offhandedly wondering what Persephone’s first word would be.

“Definitely _Mama_ ,” was Bellamy’s opinion.

“Not _Dada_?” Monty asked.  “Because statistics say that’s more likely.”

“Nah.”  Bellamy shook his head, actually attempting to pay attention to the cards this time.  “She’s gonna be a Mama’s girl.”

Harper laughed.  “Let’s be real,” she said.  “It’s probably gonna be _Murphy_.”

“With Murphy helping raise her, it’s probably gonna be _fuck_ ,” Raven pointed out, and Bellamy had to laugh.

“Shut up!” Echo yelled suddenly, holding her arms out.  Bellamy could definitely see her entire hand of cards—it wasn’t a good hand—but he didn’t mention it.

_“Cause somewhere in the crowd there’s you!  Super trouper lights are gonna find—”_

“ _Oh, fuck_ ,” Clarke swore.  “ _Murphy, I’m gonna puke_.”

The song cut off and started again, and Echo cackled.

“Gets me every time.”

 

 **224 APF**  

Clarke was tired.  Clarke was always tired now.  Murphy was tired, too, Clarke assumed, but she wasn’t him so she didn’t know for sure.

She was tired.  Babies were exhausting.  The only one who didn’t seem to be tired was Persephone herself, who somehow managed to always be sleeping except for when Clarke and Murphy tried to sleep.

Not that she was complaining.  Persephone was the cutest baby she’d ever seen, and everything about her was perfect.  Even if she never let them sleep again and never seemed to stop screaming and shit herself more often than Clarke had thought possible.

Okay, maybe she was complaining a little.

She was half dozing on the couch right now, watching Murphy through half-closed eyes.  He was pacing the room, mumbling quietly to Persephone, who was strapped to his chest.

One thing they’d discovered was that she seemed to enjoy being tightly wrapped up and tied to one of their chests.  Clarke thought it might be called kangarooing, but she had also had so little sleep in the days since her daughter’s birth that she wouldn’t be surprised if she’d completely pulled that term out of her ass.  Not that it mattered, really, what it was called.  What mattered was that Persephone didn’t scream when it was happening.

Persephone started to whine, and Murphy whispered something to her before starting to sing softly.  Clarke couldn’t quite make out the words, but the tune sounded along the lines of Sharpay’s Fabulous.  She smiled to herself, and curled in further to the couch.  If Murphy was going to distract the baby for now, she was going to use what peace she could get to try and get some sleep.

Her sleep was interrupted, however, when Murphy said something.

“What did you just call her?” she asked, sitting up on the couch.

Murphy turned to look at her, still bouncing the baby.  “Percy,” he said, slowly.  “Clarke, I’ve been telling you Persephone’s too long to just call her.  She needs a nickname.”

“And I’ve been agreeing with you,” Clarke pointed out.  “But I’ve also been telling you it’s not gonna be Percy.”

Murphy rolled his eyes, and mumbled something to Persephone about her mommy being grumpy.  Clarke was too tired to carry on the argument, and laid back down instead, her eyes falling shut.

It was to the soft notes of Murphy singing offkey about wanting lifeguards imported from Spain that she drifted off.

 

**244 APF**

Clarke woke to an amazing smell instead of the sound of a crying baby for once.  Eyes still closed, she stretched, not surprised to find the rest of the bed empty.  If there was food cooking, it really only made sense that Murphy wasn’t in bed.  Babies couldn’t cook, not in real life and, honestly, the only baby she’d seen cook on TV was Sunny Baudelaire and she was pretty sure Persephone wasn’t at that stage of baby development yet.  If she was, she hadn’t chosen to share it with her.

Persephone wasn’t in her bed, either, when she sat up and glanced that way.  She pulled on a hoodie and mused that Murphy must have decided to be nice for once, and had taken the baby with him while he made breakfast.  Not that Murphy wasn’t nice.  Pre-Praimfaya Murphy wasn’t nice.  Current Murphy was generally pretty nice.

What was even going on in her mind right now?  Clearly she was overtired and over-hungry and needed to eat before she did something crazy like propose to him just because he took the baby so she could wake up on her own.

She padded out of their room and through the lab towards the kitchen.  Murphy had some music playing softly, and she could hear him talking to Persephone.

She stepped on the spot on the floor that always squeaked, and Murphy stopped talking for a moment.

“I think your mommy is coming,” he said, louder than before, and Clarke smiled to herself.

She rounded the corner into the kitchen a few moments later and—

“Happy birthday!”

A handful of homemade confetti—actually just bits of ripped paper—hit her in the forehead and drifted down to the ground.  Clarke watched their path for a moment, before looking back up at Murphy and laughing.

He’d made party hats, wrapped up pieces of paper and coloured them brightly, and one was perched on his head and another on Persephone’s. 

“Oh,” Clarke cooed, crossing the room and plucking her daughter from Murphy’s arms.  She tucked Persephone against her chest, rocking her.  “Don’t you look adorable.”

“I prefer ruggedly handsome,” Murphy snarked, and Clarke rolled her eyes.

“I guess you look okay, too,” she told him and he laughed.

Clarke sat on one of the stools at the counter and adjusted her daughter so she could nurse.  Better to start feeding Persephone before she started to scream.  That was a lesson they’d learned the hard way.  Murphy slid a plate of waffles in front of her, taking the other seat with his own plate.

“Oh,” he said, reaching across the counter to grab something.  “Can’t forget the princess’s crown.”

He showed her her own crown-shaped party hat for a quick moment before sticking it on her head, and Clarke rolled her eyes.

“Can’t forget that,” she agreed, awkwardly cutting her waffles with one hand.  “How would all two of my subjects know I’m their princess without it?”

Murphy laughed.  “It’d be a travesty.”

They ate their breakfasts with minimal conversation, Murphy taking Persephone to burp her when she’d finished so Clarke could have a little more ease finishing her own breakfast.

“Next up.”  Murphy stood and rounded the counter, picking up a small box.  “Me and P made you a birthday present.”

Clarke stared at him for a moment before shaking her head.  “You seriously did not have to make me a birthday present,” she told him.  “I didn’t make you one.  I just made you cake.”

“And the cake was fantastic,” he told her, sliding the box towards her.  “I made one too, but it’s for later.  Right now it’s time for you to open the present and see mine and Seph’s hard work.”

Clarke opened her mouth to protest again, and then stopped.  “What did you just call her?”

Murphy sighed heavily, adjusting his hold on the baby.  “We’re not having this argument again,” he told her.  “I decided I’m just gonna try out nicknames until one sticks.”

“I’m not trying to argue,” Clarke told him, shaking her head.  “Seph.  I like it.”

Murphy brushed his hand over Persephone’s hair.  “Seph, huh?” he said, looking down at her.  “Is that your new nickname then?”

Seph didn’t answer, but Clarke did.

“Yeah,” she said.  “I think so.”

“Good.”  Murphy pushed the box closer again.  “Now, stop changing the subject and open your damn present.”

“Fine.”

Clarke pulled the box closer and opened the lid.  There was a white mug inside, one she was pretty confident Murphy had just taken out of the cupboard and put in a box.  If this was his idea of a present, at least he hadn’t put in much more effort than she had.

She was about to comment as much, until she lifted the mug out of the box.  She gasped as she turned it in her hand, taking in the bright paint of the hand and footprints Murphy had decorated it with.  She vaguely remembered wondering how something blue had gotten between Seph’s toes a few days ago, and apparently this was why.  _To Mommy Love Persephone_ was written in black letters over the paint, and Clarke was struck with the irrational feeling that she was going to cry.

“Murphy,” she whispered, trying to keep the tears in.  She looked up at him, smiling.  “Thank you.”

He shifted and rolled his eyes.  “It was nothing,” he told her, and Clarke didn’t bother to disagree.  Leaving alone the sentiment entirely, she’d tried to straighten out Seph’s hands before.  It was not an easy task.  “If you start crying, I’m gonna have to fight you.”

Clarke snorted, wiping away the tears before they had the chance to fall.  “You can’t fight me,” she said.  “It’s my birthday.”

 

**267 APF**

Clarke hadn’t been doing all that great.  Murphy thought it might be postpartum depression, but he really didn’t have any experience with that to really be able to tell.  It could also just be regular depression, or PTSD, or literally anything else she could have gotten from any of the shit they’d been through in the last few years.  Murphy didn’t know enough about any of this to tell if it was directly because of the baby or not.  He’d read up on postpartum depression a few days ago while Clarke was napping, but he still didn’t really understand it.  Psychology had never been his strong suit.

The point was Clarke wasn’t doing great, no matter the cause.  She slept all the time.  She wasn’t singing along to their shows.  He had to remind her to eat most days.  It wasn’t good.

She trudged off for another nap after picking at her lunch, and Murphy stared after her.  Seph cooed from his lap, and Murphy offered her a smile as he raised her in front of his face.

“What would make your mommy happy?” he asked her, and she stuck a fist in her mouth.

Murphy sighed and laid her back on the counter as he tied the sling around his chest, tucking her inside before going about tidying the kitchen.

They didn’t have any antidepressants.  He’d checked, a few days back, and there weren’t any in the medical supplies.  The pages on the computer about postpartum depression said it could just be baby blues, and that only lasted a few weeks or so.  That’s what he was hoping this was, at this point.

Right now, all he could really do was try to cheer her up.  If musicals weren’t doing it, he’d have to think of something that would make her laugh.

It was harder than it sounded, honestly.  He set up Seph on the floor of the TV room to do some tummy time with some toys they’d found in one of the storage rooms, and put on the second Mamma Mia.  There were so few moments when either of them had really been happy since they’d been on the ground, and it’d been so long since they’d been on the Ark where they’d taken happiness for granted.

Donna and her friends started singing about kissing the teacher, and Murphy smiled at the way Seph was wiggling around on the floor.  It was too early for her to be actually dancing, he knew, but he imagined she was anyway.

“I never got to graduate,” he told the baby in a singsong voice that any of his friends at the Dropship would’ve never let him live down had they heard it.  Hell, if Miller or Bellamy or Raven heard him use it now, they still probably wouldn’t let him live it down.  Maybe Bellamy would, since in this hypothetical scenario Bellamy was around with the baby and would most likely be using his own baby voice.

“Neither did your mommy,” Murphy continued.  Seph had the leg of a teddy bear shoved in her mouth, and was staring up at him.  “We didn’t graduate from high school or from medical school, cause we got arrested.”  Seph started to cough, and he tugged the bear out of her mouth for her to work it back in there again.  It was a game they knew well.  “Did you know you’re being raised by criminals?  Your mommy committed treason and I lit the Chancellor’s apartment on fire.”

Seph was ignoring him again, so he turned back to the TV.

They’d missed out on a lot on the Ark, what with being arrested and then being sent to the ground.  Sure, the graduation ceremonies were nowhere near as elaborate as the ones in Mamma Mia and High School Musical, but it still felt like something he’d missed out on.  Even Miller had gotten to graduate high school, waiting until the night after the celebration to steal whatever the fuck it was he’d stolen and getting arrested.  He’d only been in the Skybox a few months before they were sent to Earth.

“We never graduated,” Murphy repeated, slowly.  Seph glanced up at him briefly before deciding her bear was more interesting.

A conversation came back to him, one that had been completely joking at the time.  One that might just be exactly what he was looking for now.

_“If you get me and this baby through this alive, I will personally give you a doctorate.”_

_“Then if you and the baby both get through this alive, I’ll give you both doctorates, too.  We’ll have a whole graduation ceremony.”_

He left the movie running as he tied the sling around him again.

“Tummy time’s over, kid,” he told Seph, lifting her up and tucking her back into the sling.  She whined, and he gave her one of the smaller toys to suck on.  “Come on.  We’re gonna surprise Mommy, okay?”

*********

Clarke woke up tired, and rubbed her eyes as she left the bedroom.  She could hear Mamma Mia in the TV room, and made her way to where she assumed Murphy and her daughter would be.

The room she found was empty, save for Ruby singing Fernando on the TV screen and the remnants of what Clarke assumed was a tummy time session on the floor.

She moved to look in the kitchen next, because chances were Murphy got hungry and didn’t bother to pause the movie since they’d long since memorized it.

They weren’t in the kitchen either, though, which made her pause.

“Murphy?” she called, hoping she was loud enough for him to hear wherever he was.

“In the lab!” he called back, and she sighed and made her way that way.

“What are you—?” Clarke’s question broke off as she entered the lab, glancing around, and a dozen other questions took its place.  “What?”

Murphy was standing in the middle of the lab with Seph in his arms, grinning at her.  They both had black paper hats on, flat on top with a dangly bit.  They were crude, but unmistakable as graduation hats.

“I believe we promised each other a graduation,” he told her, and it took her a moment to figure out what he was talking about.

“That was a joke,” she pointed out, even as she was crossing the room towards him.  He had other supplies, too, laid out on the metal table.

“Nope.”  Seph held out her arms, and Clarke took her from him.  “One hundred percent was not joking.”

Clarke snorted when he presented another cap for her and let him situate it on her head.

“Alright,” he said, nodding at her.  “Are you ready?”

Clarke smiled and shook her head.  “I guess.”

“Alright.”  He picked up a piece of paper, rolled up nicely and tied with a ribbon.  “Our first graduate today is Clarke Griffin.  Clarke finished medical school with straight A’s and an internship keeping a bunch of dumb teenagers alive.  She’s probably the only reason any of us are alive to see this today, so good job, Clarke.  Her future plans are to keep me, her, and the baby alive, and she would like to thank Donna Sheridan and Meredith Grey for getting her through the MCATs and whatever other shit she definitely did.”  He held out his hand to Clarke, and she shook it with the one that wasn’t holding Seph.  “Congratulations, Dr. Griffin.”

“Thank you,” she said, and took the “diploma” he offered her with a laugh.  “You’re ridiculous.”

Murphy just winked at her and picked up the next fake diploma.  “Our next graduate is Persephone Blake-Griffin,” he said, and Clarke raised an eyebrow.  “Seph is the youngest graduate of medical school in the history of the universe, at a shockingly young age of only fifty five days old.”

“We’re not giving her a doctorate,” Clarke interrupted, laughing.  “That’s insane.  She’s going to think she’s actually a doctor and end up killing someone.”

“Fine.”  Murphy took Seph from her and cradled her to his chest.  “Ignore everything I just said.  Seph did not actually complete medical school.  Instead, she will be receiving an honorary doctorate for the esteemed action of being born healthy.”  Clarke snorted.  “Seph would like to thank her amazing Uncle Murphy for being the coolest person she knows.”  He shifted so he could hold out the fake diploma to Seph, who ignored it in favour of gumming her fist.  “Congratulations on your newly hyphenated first name, Doctor-Persephone Dynamo Wildcat Blake-Griffin.”

Clarke laughed and took the diploma from him.  “Congratulations, Seph, on having the world’s longest name,” she said, and Murphy chuckled.  “We need to stop adding to it, or when she gets in trouble, we’ll have forgotten why by the time we finish saying her name.”

Murphy snorted.  “We wouldn’t want that,” he agreed.

“Alright,” Clarke said, picking up the final fake diploma from the table.  “Our final graduate today is John Murphy.  He is literally the only reason I didn’t die during Praimfaya, and the only reason me and Seph are here to graduate today, which makes up for all the help he didn’t provide while our other graduate was keeping a bunch of teenagers alive.”  Murphy rolled his eyes.  “Murphy’s plans are to star in the post-apocalyptic performance of High School Musical, and to keep helping keep me and Seph alive.  He’d like to thank Troy Bolton for teaching him how to not keep his head in the game.”  Murphy laughed, and Clarke held out her hand.  He shook it, and accepted his diploma.  “Congratulations, Dr. Murphy.”

“Thank you, Dr. Griffin,” he said, grinning at her.  “Now it’s time for us to throw our hats in the air.”

Clarke laughed, and they took their hats off and threw them into the air.  They didn’t go very high, and hit the ground after only a moment.  Murphy repeated it with Seph’s hat.

“And now some music,” Murphy instructed, handing off the baby and moving to one of the computers.

“Looking forward from centre stage to graduation day,” he sang along with Troy and Gabriella, using his diploma as a microphone.  “Time to get the future started.”

Clarke laughed but mimicked him and joined in for the rest of the song.

*********

Clarke finished feeding Seph and tucked her into her bed, and Murphy wrapped himself around her when she climbed back into theirs.

They were quiet for a while, but Murphy could tell by the rise and fall of her chest that she hadn’t fallen asleep.

“Murphy,” she whispered after a few minutes.  He hummed against her neck to let her know he was listening.  “I think I might be a bit depressed.”

He nodded against her, holding her tighter.  “We’ll work with it,” he promised, and Clarke sighed.

“I think it’s getting better,” she told him.  “I feel better than a few days ago.  It might be nothing.”

He nodded again, squeezing her hand where it lay near his.  “Maybe,” he agreed.  “If you want to talk about it, I’m here.”

He didn’t point out that he didn’t know how much good that would do, as she’d had to tutor him when he’d almost failed psychology, and she didn’t mention it either.

“I know.”  She returned the squeeze.  “We do talk.  I don’t even know what else I’d talk about.”

“Okay.”

She was asleep soon after that, and Murphy willed himself to fall asleep, too, since Seph would be awake again soon for a feeding or a diaper change, so he needed all the sleep he could get.

 

 **298 APF**  

“No.”

Clarke had argued it every time he’d brought it up.  The thought of it terrified the shit out of her.

Murphy sighed, crossing his arms.  “Clarke—”

“I said _no_ ,” she repeated, stepping further in front of the door.  “Murphy, you’re not doing this.”

“Clarke,” Murphy repeated, softer.  He stepped closer, and Clarke stepped backwards, trying to block his path with her body.  Seph whimpered in her sleep, and Clarke adjusted her hold on her.  “Clarke, we have to do this.”

She shook her head.  “No, we don’t,” she insisted.  “We can say here.  We have food and everything we need here.  We don’t know what’s out there.”

She was being irrational.  She knew she was.  She’d blamed it on the pregnancy hormones every other time they’d had this argument, but she didn’t have that excuse this time.

He wanted to go outside.  He wanted to open the door and go out into god knows what was out there and he hadn’t even fucking brought it up this time until he was already in a fucking radiation suit.

And it terrified her.

“Clarke, we already talked about this,” he said, and she knew that.  “We said after the baby was born.  We can’t live in here forever, Clarke.”

She knew all of that.  It had been her suggestion, to wait to check the radiation after the baby had been born.  If Murphy went out and something happened, she’d have to go out and try to find him and risk the baby and nothing good would come from it.  Plus she’d figured that would be enough time for her to get over…whatever this was.

Clearly, it wasn’t.

It was irrational.  She had fallen from space.  She had won wars.  She had killed people.  She made the tough decisions.  People feared her.

And now the thought of opening a fucking door made her feel like she was going to have a panic attack.

It wasn’t even like she didn’t want to go outside.  God, she wanted to go outside, to go anywhere other than this stupid lab.  If it was safe for them to leave, they could stop by the bunker.  She could see her mom and Miller and Octavia and whoever else survived Praimfaya.  Seph could meet her grandma and her aunt.  They could bring food and supplies to the people in the bunker, and help get everything ready for when it was safe outside for them, too.

She wanted to leave.  She wanted to see the sun and eat meat and vegetables that hadn’t been frozen since before the first apocalypse.

But the thought of actually going outside, of what could happen if they did and it wasn’t safe, terrified her.

“Please,” she whispered, her voice breaking, and she let Murphy wrap her in his arms.

“I’ll be fine,” he told her, his breath brushing against her forehead with his words.  One hand moved up her back, his fingers digging into her hair.  “I promise I’ll be fine, Clarke.  We know what levels Luna started to get sick at.  I’m not going to take off my helmet if it’s not safe.”

She stood there, pressed up against him, for too long before she spoke.

He was right.  They knew everything they had to know to make this safe.  Their nightblood hadn’t been tested, but everything pointed to it working like Luna’s.  Clarke had survived after her helmet had broken.  The door to the lab wasn’t airtight, so there was radiation seeping in.  There was nothing to suggest that this wouldn’t go how they planned.

But…

“I can’t lose you,” she told him, hating how her voice broke on the words, how weak she felt.  “I can’t lose you, Murphy.  I need you.  We need you.  Alive.”

“I know,” he whispered back, stroking her hair.  “I know.  I’m going to take every precaution we have, okay?  I’m gonna be fine.”

Clarke nodded, trying to pretend she believed that.  “Take a radio,” she said.  “Don’t stop talking to me, okay?  No matter what.  And you’re back in an hour.”

“Okay.”  He gripped her tighter, and Clarke felt Seph squirm in her sleep where she was pressed between them.  “Okay.”

*********

Murphy stared at the door in front of him, trying to psych himself up to open it.  They had to do this, and they had to do this soon.  He was starting to go crazy, stuck in here.  He’d barely managed to last three months the last time he’d been locked in a bunker, and being stuck with Clarke and the baby was infinitely better than being entirely alone, but he still felt trapped.

But Clarke was getting to him.  What if he opened the door and the radiation immediately killed him, even through the suit?  What if he made it outside and something else killed him?

No.  He couldn’t psych himself out.  He could do this.  He could spend an hour outside, check the radiation levels, and see what was left of the world.

_“Are you outside yet?”_

Clarke’s voice came from the radio in his hand.  She and Seph were in the pantry, behind the airlock that would protect them from whatever radiation came in when he opened the door.  Clarke had an extra suit inside, but unless things were dire, they would stay in there until he’d had a chance to test the radiation levels in the lab when he came back.

He took a deep breath and raised the radio to the window in his helmet.  “Opening it now.”

_“Be careful.”_

He put the radio down, on top of the portable radiation detector, and spun the lock on the door.  It squealed loudly as he pushed it open.  He had to close his eyes against the brightness of outside, but he didn’t immediately die.

That was a positive.

He moved outside, taking the radio and the radiation kit with him, and hurried to close the door.

“I’m outside,” he told Clarke, staring out at what the Death Wave had left behind.

_“What do you see?”_

He took a moment to answer, then pressed the button.  “Sand,” he said.  “So much sand.”

There was literally nothing else.  No trees.  No rocks.  No plants.  Just sand, as far as he could see in any direction.  Hadn’t they been close to a fucking ocean?  Or a big lake, at least?  Whatever it was, it had been replaced.

By sand.

_Fuck._

He talked to Clarke, like he’d promised, talking her through setting up the device and waiting for it to read the radiation levels.  He told her how bright the sun was, the blueness of the sky.  There wasn’t a cloud in sight.

The device beeped, and he paused, glancing down at it.

“What was the level again?” he asked Clarke, not daring to test his own memory.  Clarke recited it, the same number he’d been thinking, and Murphy closed his eyes.  “It’s below that.  A lot below that.  Not enough for non-nightbloods to survive, but we should be able to.”

She was quiet for a moment, long enough for Murphy to weigh the pros and cons of his next move and switch off his oxygen tank.

 _“Don’t,”_ she finally said, like she knew exactly what he was thinking.  _“Don’t even fucking think about it, Murphy.”_

He silently apologized to her, his fingers already undoing the locks around his helmet.

_“Murphy, please.  Don’t test it.  Not like this.  Please.  Fucking say something.”_

He swallowed heavily and pulled off his helmet.

 

**17 BPF**

Emori.

They wanted to test the nightblood on Emori.

Yes, she had lied about who the last guy they’d tested it on, but that didn’t mean she should die.

“Please,” Murphy begged, even as they were being pulled towards the rocket to be locked up until it the blood was ready to be tested.  “Please don’t do this.  This isn’t fair.”

Emori wasn’t fighting, and Murphy was close to screaming at her for it.  Did she not understand what this meant?  Did she not understand that they thought she was disposable?  That she’d be the next one to die in this useless experiment?  Did she not know that losing her, losing their baby, would kill him?

He met Roan’s eyes from across the lab, silently pleading for him to do something.  Roan didn’t move, and he glanced to Clarke instead.

“Please, Clarke,” he said, even as Miller dragged him up the ladder.  “You can’t do this.  Emori’s pr—”

“John.”

His gaze snapped to Emori, being strung up beside him.  She shook her head.

“Don’t,” she told him, and he couldn’t understand how she was being so calm, why she was doing this.

“Emori, they need to know,” he pleaded.  “If they know, they’ll stop.  I can’t lose you.”

He wrenched his arms, trying and failing to get them free, and that was when Roan finally decided to say something.

“This isn’t fair.”

“No fucking shit,” Murphy couldn’t help but snap, even if Roan seemed to be fighting for his side here.

“Emori lied,” Roan continued, ignoring him like everyone else seemed to be doing.  “That doesn’t mean she should be the next one to test.  We’ve all lied.”

Raven sighed.  “So, what?” she asked.  “You’re suggesting we draw names or something?”

Roan shrugged, seeming to be at the end of his argument.  Murphy held his breath, hoping it was enough.

It was.

Raven and Abby were left out, since they were the only ones who knew how to make this nightblood stuff, what they’d already tried and all that shit.  Murphy thought that wasn’t fair either, but he and Emori had been let down and this was still a better chance than before.

Until it wasn’t.

“Murphy.”

He closed his eyes as Abby read out his name, feeling as if the world had fallen out from under his feet.  The others were saying something, were talking to him or about him, but he couldn’t hear.  All he could feel was Emori gripping his arm.  All he could think about was how this stupid thing wasn’t going to work.  How he was going to die today.  How he was going to be leaving Emori, leaving their son.  How he’d never get to meet his son.

Then, as suddenly as it had disappeared, the room was back.  He could hear Emori yelling, screaming that he wasn’t going to be testing this thing, that they were crazy if they thought he was, and he thought about the alternative.  If he said he wasn’t going to do it, they were going to force him to anyway.  Or, worse, they’d go back to Emori.

He opened his eyes, reached up to squeeze her hand where it still clutched to his arm.  “It’s okay,” he told her, when she stopped screaming long enough to look at her.  “It’s okay, Emori.”  He looked away from her, meeting Abby’s eyes.  “I’ll do it.”

He forced himself to tune out Emori’s pleads for him to stop as he crossed the room.  As Abby swabbed his arm.  As she injected him with the nightblood.  It hurt like a bitch, but he grit his teeth and refused to make a sound.

She was almost finished when he heard a commotion, something behind him that he couldn’t see without craning his neck.

“What are you doing?”

It was Miller asking the question, demanding it of whoever he was talking to.  Abby finished injecting him and pulled out the needle.  She looked over him to see what was going on, and dropped the needle with a gasp.

When Murphy finally looked, he found Clarke standing there, pulling a needle from her own arm, empty of the nightblood it’d once held.

“We’re testing me.”

 

 **298 APF**   

He wasn’t saying anything.  Why wasn’t he saying anything?  He’d said he wouldn’t stop talking.  He’d _promised_.

“Murphy,” she pleaded, the radio pressed close to her mouth.  “Murphy answer me.  Tell me you’re okay.”

He didn’t say anything, and her panic rose.  She started thinking logistics, how long she could feasibly leave Seph in here while she went to figure out what the fuck was going on.

“Murphy, I swear to god,” she growled into the radio.  “If you took your fucking helmet off, I will come up there and kill you myself.”

She ran a hand through her hair, glancing at Seph, asleep on a blanket she’d brought in with them, and made her decision.  She crossed to where the extra radiation suit was, pushing out of her slippers to pull it on.

She’d barely managed to get her legs in when the light started flashing by the door, accompanied by the loud beeping that signaled that someone was in the airlock.

Clarke tripped the suit in her rush to get to the door, a small part of her thanking the fact that Seph seemed to be able to sleep through anything when she wanted to.  She pressed her face against the glass, watching the room decontaminate Murphy.

He looked fine, physically.  He wasn’t burning or blistering or anything else they’d seen the radiation do.  He had his suit half off, the arms tied around his waist, and when he grinned at her he glared back.

When the process was finally over and he was able to step out, she threw herself at him, holding him tightly and willing the tears that had been gathering in her eyes to not fall.

“What the fuck were you thinking?” she asked him, her face buried against his chest where she could hear his heartbeat.

His hands rubbed up and down her back.  “I was thinking that the levels were a lot lower than when Luna got sick,” he said.  “I was thinking that we had to test it at some point, and I was a better test subject than you.”

“No,” she told him, so quietly she wasn’t sure if he actually heard.

“I tested my blood,” he said, and she pulled back to look up at him.  “On the way back down.  It’s running through the system right now, so it shouldn’t take too long to see if I’ve got any radiation poisoning.  If I do, which I don’t think I do, we’ll deal with it, okay?”

She didn’t like this.  She didn’t like this at all, but there was nothing she could do about it.

“Fine,” she agreed, turning away and walking back to where she’d left Seph.

The result eventually came in, clearing him of radiation poisoning.

Murphy grinned at her, tugging her to her feet.  “Are you ready to go outside?”

Clarke shook her head, stooping to pick up Seph.  “She’s a baby,” she pointed out.  “We don’t know how this differs between adults and babies.”

“Clarke, you were what?  Six, seven weeks pregnant when you gave yourself Luna’s bone marrow?”  Murphy looked at her expectantly, and Clarke shrugged.  “I think at this point Seph’s probably the closest of us to a natural nightblood.  She’ll be fine.”

Clarke took a deep breath, blowing it out through her teeth.  “I know,” she agreed.  “I know.  I just can’t lose anyone else.”

Murphy nodded, tugging her towards the door.  “You’re not going to,” he promised.

*********

She could remember the first time she’d felt the sun on her face like it was yesterday, and she was still blown away by the feel of it today.

Seph had woken up while she was putting on shoes, and was just staring up at the sky.  Clarke wasn’t sure how much she could actually see, but Seph seemed to enjoy being outside just as much as they did.

“Look, baby,” she said, turning her daughter so she could look at the endless sandy wasteland.  “This is the world.  We’re gonna find somewhere green, okay?  And that’s gonna be our home one day.”

Murphy was standing a little ways away, his eyes closed and his face tilted towards the sun.  She walked over to him, leaning against his side.

“Taking off your helmet was a dumb decision,” she told him, and he glanced down at her.  She offered him a small smile.  “But I’m really glad you did it.”

Later, they’d decide to wait to leave.  Seph was so little still, and they needed time to figure out a game plan.  They chose 102 days, in honour of their crew at the Dropship.  One hundred delinquents, a stowaway, and the girl who’d followed them down.

When day 400 hit, they’d be gone.

 

**365 APF**

Murphy was still asleep when Seph woke, and Clarke figured it was for the better.  He’d been up screaming most of the night, and she’d barely gotten him to sleep at all.

She brought Seph out of their room, shushing her quietly as she made her way to the kitchen.  She threw together some cereal and ate it while her daughter nursed, and Clarke wondered whether Murphy would make it out of bed today at all.  She wouldn’t blame him if he didn’t. 

Seph was being extra fussy today and refused to stay still in Clarke’s arms, so they went to have some tummy time in the TV room while Clarke listened for any sign that Murphy was awake.

It wasn’t until after Seph had eaten twice more and Clarke had made herself lunch that she finally heard stirring in the bedroom.  Seph was dozing, so she tucked her against her chest and made her way in.

Murphy wasn’t in bed, but there was light coming from under the ensuite door, so she perched on the bed to wait for him.

He was back a few minutes later, eyes red and swollen.  He barely looked at her as he walked back to the bed and crawled under the covers.

Clarke laid down beside him, after placing Seph on the pillow on her side of the bed that was never used.

“Hey,” she whispered, stroking the bit of hair that stuck out from under the blankets.  “Do you need anything?”  He didn’t answer, but she felt him shake his head.  “I’m here, okay?  Anything you need.”

She lay there for a few more minutes, until Seph started to squirm, the telltale signs that she was waking up from her nap.  She sat up, shifting her baby into her lap.  Murphy’s hand shot out from under the blankets, grabbing onto her wrist.

“Stay with me.”

“Okay.”  He released her wrist and she laid down again, Seph tucked between them this time.

*********

Clarke sat in front of the radio, staring down at the transmitter in her hand.  Murphy had fallen asleep and Seph had needed a diaper change and another snack, so here she was.

“Hey, guys,” she started.  “It’s been 365 days since Praimfaya.  A whole year.  Only four more until you can come home.

“Murphy’s not doing great,” she admitted, pausing as she adjusted her hold on Seph.  “Not that I expect him to be doing great.  It’s been one year since Emori died, and I don’t know if he’s told you, but she was pregnant.  They were going to have a baby.  He lost her and his son all at once.”

She was quiet for a few minutes, as Seph had finished nursing and she had to burp her.  Her daughter decided to stop being fussy and be cuddly, snuggling her face into Clarke’s neck.

“I don’t know what I’d do if I lost you and Seph, Bell,” she whispered into the radio, tears gathering in her eyes.  “I know it’s selfish to be thinking of that when Murphy literally did lose all of that, but I don’t know.  I don’t know if I could survive that.”

She talked for a little while longer, telling them about the plans they’d made so far for leaving the lab and how Seph had almost sat up by herself the night before.

Then she was silent, having run out of things to say, staring down at Seph.  Her daughter was laying on her chest, happily chewing on the ties of her hoodie

“Please come back, Bell,” she said.  “Try to be on time, okay?  I need you to come back.”

*********

Murphy woke up feeling like shit.  Clarke wasn’t there.  He knew they both couldn’t just spend the whole day in bed, but he still felt a stab of disappointment go through him.

He was hungry, but the thought of eating anything made him nauseous.  He didn’t want to get up, wanted to just keep laying in bed wallowing, but he made himself stand.

He was equal parts disappointed and relieved that he didn’t run into Clarke.  He could hear the TV softly from the other room, but made his way into the lab.

He sunk into a chair, his fingers moving on autopilot to bring up the picture of Max.  It wasn’t the only one he had, but it was the one where he could see his face best, so it was the one he kept coming back to.

One hand traced over the photo on the screen, the other finding the radio without really meaning to.

“Emori,” he whispered, hating how his voice broke on her name.  “Emori, I miss you so much.  I can’t—it’s been a year since you died.  It doesn’t feel like a year.  It feels like yesterday and forever ago.  I miss you.”

He sobbed as he poured out everything he wished he could say to her, to their son, every little thing he should have said before she was gone, everything he would have said if they’d had a little more time.

He apologized over and over for not being able to save her, for sometimes not remembering the exact details of her voice or the sound of her laugh.

He continued on, not sure if anything he said was making any sense and not caring, until his voice had run raw and he couldn’t continue anymore.

He dropped the radio onto the desk and brushed his fingers over Max’s face once more before leaving the room.

He found Clarke in the TV room.  She was sitting on the couch with a cup of tea, and Seph was having tummy time on the carpet.  The baby squealed when she noticed him, reaching her pudgy arms into the air.

He picked her up as he passed by, tucking her against his chest as another round of tears started pooling behind his eyes, and then crawled onto the couch, curling up against Clarke and pressing his face into her neck.

“I miss her,” he whispered, the words rasping out.

“I know,” she whispered back.  Her fingers started brushing through his hair, and he sobbed against her.  “I know.”

 

**381 APF**

Clarke was taking a bath, and Murphy and Seph were watching some cartoon that claimed to be good for babies’ development.  If you asked Murphy, it was bad for his own development, but according to Clarke that didn’t matter.

So they were watching it.  Or, more accurately, Murphy was watching it and Seph was trying to shove her fist up his nose or into his mouth, laughing all the time.

“You don’t even like this show, do you?” he asked her, and Seph took his talking as invitation to reach into his mouth and grab his tongue.  He couldn’t even be mad at her as he fished her fingers out.  Her laugh was too adorable.

“Wouldn’t you rather watch High School Musical?” he asked, and Seph answered by grabbing his nose and squealing.

He took that as a yes and clutched her against his chest as he leaned forward to grab the remote.

“Dadadadadadada.”

He stopped abruptly, moving Seph away from him enough to see her face.  “What did you say?”

She repeated her babbling, because, as Murphy tried to tell himself, that was all it was at this point.  Babbling.  Just learning to make sounds.  She wouldn’t actually be saying words for weeks, maybe even months.

But as much as he told himself that, it didn’t change the fact that she was still there, grinning up at him, and calling him Dada.

“No,” he told her gently, sitting back up on the couch, remote forgotten.  “No, Seph.  I’m not your Dada.  He’s in space, remember?”

“Dadadadada,” Seph said, grabbing his nose.

Murphy squeezed his eyes shut, willing the sudden onslaught of tears to not fall.  This wasn’t fair.  He should have been a dada, a dad.  He was.  But he’d never gotten to hear Max call him that.

And now, with Seph?  He wasn’t her dad.  Bellamy was, and he’d never try to take that away from him.

But some days, when Seph snuggled close when she was sleepy, or when he was the only one who could get her to stop crying, some days he felt like he was her dad.  Not instead of Bellamy, but in addition to.

He was never going to voice that to anyone—not that he really had anyone to tell.  Seph would keep his secret, but he felt bad burdening a baby with that, even if she didn’t understand.  Telling Clarke would be a mess that he didn’t even want to consider, and, if he shouted it into the void that was the radio, that would practically guarantee that Bellamy and the rest of the people on the Ark were hearing them and would definitely guarantee that things would be beyond awkward when they eventually came down.

He couldn’t tell anyone, so for a few, blissful moments, he let himself pretend that Seph knew what she was saying, that she was calling him Dada and that that was what he was.  Papa was what he’d been planning on having Max call him, but right now Dada was just as good.

Seph managed to work her fingers up his nose, and Murphy snapped himself out of his daydream so he could remove them.

“I’m not your dada,” he whispered, blinking away his tears before they could fall.  “Can you say Murphy?  Murphy!”

“Dada,” Seph said, and punched him in the eye.

*********

_“So I’ve got some news for all you aliens tuned into our show today.”_

Raven snorted as she took the tool Bellamy was holding out, and Bellamy rolled his eyes.  Murphy’s messages were always either hilarious nonsense or absolutely heart wrenching, and there was very little ground in between.  The heart wrenching ones were usually addressed to Emori, though, so he could safely say this would fall on the hilarious end of the spectrum.

_“As we all know, five and a half months is too early for babies to start speaking, but this kid’s been babbling up a storm all day and says she wants you to hear.”_

Bellamy heard Harper gasp, but he’d frozen above the toolbox where he was searching for the next tool Raven needed.  He hadn’t heard much of Seph, other than crying occasionally.  He wasn’t sure if they just hadn’t thought to put her on the radio, or if not having Seph on the radio meant that Murphy was kept away from whatever Clarke was saying that day, or some other reason entirely.

_“Bellamy, she doesn’t know what she’s saying yet.  She’s just making sounds and this is her favourite sound right now, but you need to hear her.  She’s—you need to hear her.”_

Bellamy didn’t move, couldn’t move.  A part of him knew what was coming, but he couldn’t let himself think that, couldn’t let himself hope.

_“Come on, Seph.  Say what you were saying earlier.  Let’s hear it.”_

Seph didn’t say anything, and Murphy sighed.  It was an exasperated sigh Bellamy had heard from his mother far too many times to count.  The sigh of a parent.  He pushed away the jealously at how to Seph, at this point, at least, Murphy really was more her dad than he was.  It wasn’t fair, he knew, because he would be killing it at being her dad if he was down there, and it was going to take years to make it up to Murphy once he was back.  So he pushed it away and focused on the radio, not wanting to miss a second of anything his daughter might do.

_“Really?  You’re gonna be shy now?  Really?”_

Seph let out a squealing laugh, and Bellamy closed his eyes, a smile stretching across his face.

_“Come on, kid.  We’re talking to your dada.  He’s up in space and he wants to hear you, okay?  Dada.”_

Seph laughed for a few more moments, pure joy reflected in the sound, and Murphy kept encouraging her to say whatever it was he wanted her to say, until—

_“Dadadadadadadada.”_

Bellamy dropped the tool he was holding, the clatter as it hit the ground doing nothing to drown out the sound of Seph’s babbling.

_“It’s not words yet.  She’s been calling me dada for the last, like, half an hour, and her teddy bear and the TV and everything else.  But you need to hear it.  I never got to hear it, not even just babbling, so you need to hear it.”_

Seph cut herself off with another squealing laugh, and then she and Murphy were gone, leaving the Ark in silence once more.

Bellamy couldn’t stop grinning as he helped Raven with whatever she was doing.  It didn’t matter that it was just babbling, that Seph was calling everyone and everything Dada.  It didn’t matter that she didn’t know what she was saying.

She said Dada.  He got to hear her say it, to him.  Her first pseudoword, and it was his name.

Not even Harper and Monty referring to him as Dada for the rest of the day could ruin his mood.

*********

Clarke emerged from the bathroom with her hair wrapped up in a towel on top of her head, feeling relaxed.  She stopped by the kitchen to grab some snacks, smiling at the sound of Murphy and Seph’s laughter coming from the living room. 

Snacks in hand, she made her way to them.

“Want to watch a movie?” she asked, reaching down to brush her fingers through Seph’s dark curls as she stepped over Murphy.  He was lying on the ground while the baby crawled up his side and then let herself roll back down to the ground, one of her favourite games in the week or so since she’d learned to pull herself around.

“Sure.”  Murphy captured Seph as she reached his chest again, sitting up and bringing her with him.  “But Seph wants to show you her new trick first.”

Clarke snorted.  “She’s not a puppy,” she pointed out, leaving out the fact that she’d referred to the fascinating new things that her daughter learned as tricks, too.  She took Seph from Murphy when he joined her on the couch, holding her up so she could rub their noses together and cooing, “You’ve got a new trick to show Mommy?”

Seph just laughed and grabbed a handful of Clarke’s hair, tugging with more strength than someone so little should have.

Clarke winced and put her down on her lap as she tried to extract her hair.  “This isn’t a new trick,” she pointed out, and Murphy rolled his eyes.

“Stop hurting your mommy,” he admonished, tickling Seph’s sides.  She laughed and released the hair, her hands reaching out to Murphy instead.  He shook his head, wiggling a finger at her.  “Nope.  I’m not picking you up till you show Mommy what you can do.”

Seph laughed, batting at his finger for a few moments, and Clarke grinned as Murphy seemed to get more and more frustrated the longer she didn’t do whatever it was he wanted her to do.

“Come on, kid,” Murphy urged, poking Seph in the nose.  “You can say it.  I know you can.  I heard you earlier.  Come on.  Dadadada.”

Seph grabbed his finger.  “Mamamamama,” she said, stopping once she managed to get the finger into her mouth.

Clarke gasped, and Murphy did too.

“She said Mama,” she whispered, bumping his shoulder with hers.  “Oh my god.”

“Pretty sure she actually said Murphy,” he argued, grinning just as wide as she was.  “She was saying Dada earlier.  I didn’t know how long it’d last, so we radioed Bellamy.”

He pulled his finger from her mouth again, and Seph reached up for it, continuing her babbling.

“See?” he said, turning his smirk on Clarke.  “She’s clearly saying Murphy.”

“She’s obviously saying Mama.”  Clarke laughed, picking up her daughter and tucking her into her chest.  She felt two little fists immediately tangle themselves in her hair.

 

**388 APF**

Murphy wasn’t really paying attention to the movie.  It was about a boat and rich people on a boat and a not rich dude that’d fallen in love with one of the rich people and Clarke thought both the main characters were really hot and he thought he remembered seeing something about it being based on a true story, but that was about all he remembered.

He was trying to focus on the movie.  Clarke seemed really into it, and even Seph was sitting between them quietly, staring at the TV and chewing on the leg of her teddy bear.

But he just couldn’t.  A million things were running through his head, all the things they’d already gotten ready and the ones they hadn’t yet.  Twelve days was not a long time, and as ready as he was to leave, he was sure they were going to forget something.

Clarke glanced over at him and sighed.  “You’re thinking really loudly,” she told him, and he just shrugged.  She picked up Seph, the baby wiggling her legs in the air.  “Lay down.”

Murphy complied, placing his head in her lap, and Clarke deposited the baby on his chest.  Seph thrust the soggy teddy bear at his face, and he made the appropriate eating noises for her to pull it back with a laugh and start eating it herself again.

Clarke’s fingers brushed through his hair, and he tried to clear his head.

“It’s going to be fine,” she told him, and he managed to not point out that she’d been the one to not be okay with it to begin with.  “We can worry about it tomorrow.  Jack’s gonna draw Rose like one of her French girls.  You don’t wanna miss that.”

Murphy opened his eyes, staring up at her in confusion before turning to the TV.  The not rich dude was laying out art supplies, but Murphy couldn’t figure out why Clarke thought he wouldn’t want to miss this.  “What the fuck does that mean?”

Clarke looked down at him, wiggling her eyebrows.  “It means she’s gonna be naked,” she told him, and Murphy laughed.

“Oh.  Yeah, you’re right,” he agreed.  “Definitely don’t want to miss this.”

They watched for a while longer, and Clarke was right.  Murphy did not want to miss Rose being drawn like a French girl, whatever that meant.  And then Jack and Rose were fucking in a car and Rose’s fiancé who was too much of a dick for Murphy to even attempt to remember his name had found the picture and was plotting something and then there was an iceberg.

“Oh fuck,” Murphy said, Clarke’s hands slipping from his hair as he sat up, pulling Seph into his lab.  “They’re gonna hit it.”

“No.”  Clarke glanced at him from the corner of her eye.  “They can’t hit it.  The _Titanic_ is unsinkable, Murphy.  They’ve been saying that this whole movie.”

Murphy shook his head.  “Remember the old lady?  And I’m pretty sure they pulled that picture from the bottom of the ocean at the beginning.”

Clarke turned her gaze back to the screen in time to watch the side of the boat crash into the iceberg.  “Oh, shit.”

“Shee,” Seph echoed, and they glanced down at her.

“This isn’t the time to learn to swear, kid,” Murphy told her.  “The _Titanic_ ’s sinking.”

Clarke laughed, turning back to the screen.  “I feel like this might be the exact right time to learn to swear,” she pointed out, and Murphy shrugged.  “If they kill Jack, I’m gonna scream.”

She did, in fact scream, and Murphy did not cry like a baby, no matter what Clarke and Seph might say.

 

**400 APF**

Clarke tightened the straps of her large backpack, mentally running through the lists they’d made and already gone through over a dozen times as she stared into the wasteland outside the lab’s door.

“Ready?”

She turned to look at Murphy, his own backpack strapped to his back and Seph tied to his chest.

Was she ready?  It was a hard question.  Was she ready to be out of this damn lab?  Yes, beyond so.  Was she ready to save what relative safety they had here and head out into the unknown?  That was the harder part.

Seph’s teddy bear was going to fall out of the sling, so she stepped closer to Murphy so she could tuck it back in with her sleeping daughter.

“Yeah,” she said, looking up at him and smiling.  “Yeah, I’m ready.  Let’s do this.”

 

* * *

  _I'll never let you down_  
_I'll always be around_  
_When you're hurt, I'm sorry_  
_I'll be there, don't worry_  
_Never let you down_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What's that? Multiple chapters in a row with very little angst? Does that mean all the angst will be hitting us in the next chapters?
> 
> Y'all are so nosy. Guess you'll have to wait and see ;)
> 
> Next chapter's song is Stand By You by Rachel Platten
> 
> Comments pass my midterms and kudos write my essays
> 
> Come follow me on Tumblr at probably-voldemort!


	8. i'll walk through hell with you

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, avid readers.
> 
> Firstly, I apologize for the tardiness of this chapter. I had three midterms this week, and thus briefly died. I am, however, mostly back to life now, so I will try to be less tardy with the next chapter.
> 
> Secondly, I am on a significant amount of cold medication right now, which I believe is the reason behind me finding it funny to write these notes as if they're a professional email. I hope you find it as funny as my medicated brain is finding it.
> 
> As you can probably assume from the fact that I am on cold medication, I am getting sick. There is a horrible flu going around, and I believe I may be contracting that. This may cause next week's update to be late, as if I do end up with the flu, I may not feel like writing as much as I would otherwise. However, after next week, I will be on reading break. As I only have some readings and a short paper to do for class, I plan to write a few chapters while I'm home and be ahead of schedule.
> 
> Finally, there is a certain element in this chapter that I have no real-life experience with. Revealing this element would spoil this chapter for you, so I will just say that there is a high chance that the depiction of said element may not be 100% realistic. I would appreciate it if you could suspend your disbelief if that is the case.
> 
> Attached is chapter 8, and I look forward to hearing your thoughts on it soon.
> 
> Apologies in advance,  
> Kee

_I'll be your eyes when yours can't shine_  
_I'll be your arms, I'll be your steady satellite_  
_And when you can't rise, well, I'll crawl with you on hands and knees_  
_Cause I_  
_I'm gonna stand by you_

* * *

 

**403 APF**

“Are you sure these are the coordinates?”

“Yes.”

“But are you sure?”

Clarke groaned and looked up at him, obvious annoyance written on her face.  “Murphy, if you ask me one more time, I’m gonna shove the GPS up your ass so you can tell if it’s the right coordinates yourself.”

Murphy grumbled under his breath about how that was a really inconvenient way to go about it, and, really, how was he supposed to see the GPS if it was up his ass, but didn’t ask again.

Honestly, Clarke had every right to be annoyed with him.  It wasn’t like it was her fault that everything had turned to sand.  It wasn’t like she hadn’t been walking through this fucking desert for days, too.

Somehow he’d expected this to be easy, despite everything.  Somehow he’d expected them to find the rover just sitting on top of the sand, all charged up and ready to go.

But nope.  If it was even still here and hadn’t been completely destroyed by the death wave, it was somewhere under god knows how much sand.  Really it was on him for being optimistic for once.

They’d finally reached here an hour or so ago.  It took longer than either of them had thought, since there was no water so there was no boat so they had to walk the whole way, and travelling with a baby made everything take twice as long.  Not to mention that after over a year of sitting in the lab and not really doing anything to keep up their fitness, they were really out of shape.

They’d set up the tent first.  There had been a brief bout of acid fog the second day in, and Murphy was beyond thankful they’d thought to pack an acid proof tent.  It was getting close to sunset, too, so it was better to have it set up early than have to do it after dark.

The problem, though, was that they could only carry so much water with them at a time.  They’d yet to find anything other than sand and the occasional rock, which meant that they had until tomorrow night to find and dig up the rover before they had to walk back to the lab to refill their water supplies.  And then do it all again.

Clarke was nursing Seph right now, and Murphy was wandering around aimlessly.  Okay, not aimlessly, since his aim was to find the rover, but so far that had been a complete waste of time.

They didn’t really have a plan for if they didn’t find the rover.  There was no way they could make it to Polis with what little water they could carry on them, let alone packing food or clothes or extra diapers or anything else they might need.  And, sure, they could survive the radiation, but did that really matter if they died of starvation or dehydration anyway?

So they had to find the rover.

Murphy kicked a rock, sending it skimming over the sand, and heard it hit something.

Clarke glanced up again at the hollow noise, and scrambled to her feet to follow him towards it.

Murphy dropped to his knees next to the small piece of metal sticking from the sand, and tried to keep himself from hoping again.  When he hoped, things went wrong.

“What is it?” Clarke asked, stopping next to him.  Murphy shrugged, and Clarke put Seph on the sand despite her protests at not being finished her dinner.

They dug and dug, until—

“Yes!”

Sticking out of the sand was what was clearly the barred from window of the rover.

“Oh, thank fuck,” Clarke sighed, sitting back and picking up Seph again.  Murphy nodded his agreement.

 

**425 APF**

Clarke piled the last of their things into the rover, and ran over her mental checklist.  Three weeks of food.  Blankets and pillows.  Every diaper they had.  Extra clothes.  Her mug.  Basic first aid and medicine supplies.

They were ready to go.

She stood in the doorway to the lab, staring down into it.  Murphy slung an arm around her shoulder.

“It’s weird, right?” she asked.  “That I feel kind of sad that we’re leaving?”

Murphy laughed.  “Yeah, it’s weird,” he confirmed.  “I feel it, too, though.”

Clarke nodded.  “Goodbye, lab,” she declared.  She took a step back and slammed the door shut, turning back to Murphy.  “Ready?”

He grinned at her, and they piled into the rover.

It had taken days to dig it up, three trips back and forth to the lab for more food and water.  And then they’d had to pack, figure out what they were taking with them.  They could always come back, after they found some place to live on the surface, but they didn’t know how long that would be.  So they’d made sure to pack all the essentials, everything they couldn’t live without.

Clarke tucked Seph onto her lap in the passenger seat, and Seph stuck her bear’s arm in her mouth.

Murphy shifted into drive.  “Let’s get the fuck out of here.” 

 

**426 APF**

“What is that?”

Murphy was in the back of the rover playing with Seph when Clarke started to slow down.  He plucked up the baby and slid back into the front seat as Clarke stopped.

A few dozen metres or so in front of them the sand changed colour, darkening drastically.

“What the fuck?” he murmured, and Clarke shrugged.

The piled out of the rover and made their way towards the darker sand—only to discover it wasn’t actually darker sand.

“Shit.”

Clarke had to agree with Murphy.  Stretching out as far as they could see in every direction was a hole.  A canyon, really.  It wasn’t deep enough that they couldn’t see the bottom, and, had it been a gradual incline, Clarke was sure they’d have been able to drive straight through.  But, as it was, the canyon was bordered on this side, at least, by a ninety degree cliff.

“We’re gonna have to go around, aren’t we?” Clarke muttered, not even needing to hear Murphy’s response to know she was right.

So much for making it to the bunker tomorrow.

*********

“I’m telling you, it’d be hilarious,” Murphy said, pointing his fork for emphasis.  “We could probably get them to believe us for years.”

The rover was charging—or, rather, it had been charging before the sun had set.  Now it was just kind of sitting there—and Seph had fallen asleep.  They’d discovered back when they were still trying to find the rover that it was too dark at night to try to travel, even with how bright the moon and stars were, and it wasn’t like they were in a rush or anything.

So they were eating dinner, and Murphy was pitching the idea of trying to convince everyone in the bunker that Seph was their kid and they were together.

Clarke shook her head, grinning as she ate another bite of cold pasta.  They’d been too lazy to make a fire tonight, and, anyway, reheating pasta on a fire had not given them good results before.  It would’ve made more sense to just pack uncooked stuff and make it when they needed to, but they wanted to save the water for drinking rather than cooking.

“No one would believe us,” she told him.  “I mean, really, look at her and tell me you really think my mom or Octavia or Miller or anybody will see her and think _man, that kid sure looks like Bellamy, but I bet she’s actually Murphy’s._ ”

Murphy rolled his eyes.  “I guess you have a point,” he conceded.  “But I still think it’d be funny.  Think about it.”

“Fine, I’ll think about it,” Clarke agreed, laughing.  She finished off her pasta, pushed the Tupperware to the side of the rover, and pulled her blankets higher over her legs.  “Okay.  Truth or dare?”

Murphy laughed.  “What is this, a sleepover?” he asked.  “Are we gonna talk about the boys we like and braid each other’s hair, too?”

Clarke shrugged.  “I mean, if you want.”

He sighed, and put away his own dishes.  “Dare.”

“I dare you to braid my hair and talk about the boys you like.”  Clarke grinned at the face Murphy made.

“You’re lucky I like you, Griffin,” he grumbled, and gestured at her.  “Turn around.  You know, I think I might be into Bellamy.”

Clarke laughed and spun around, lounging against his legs as his fingers dug into her hair.  “You trying to steal my man?” she asked, gasping in fake horror.  “How scandalous.  What’s everyone going to say at school on Monday?”

“They’re gonna have to get over it,” Murphy told her.  “I don’t know what to tell you, Clarke.  This whole raising his kid while he’s up in space thing is just making me fall in love with him.  He’s definitely gonna go for me instead of you when he gets back.”  Clarke snorted, and then elbowed him in the leg when he tugged too hard on a strand.  “Ow!  Fuck, Clarke.  Your turn.  Truth or dare?”

 

**432 APF**

Bellamy spun the cards in his hand.  “Like this?”

Monty sighed.  “No,” he told him.  “I saw them.  You need to keep it invisible.  Like this.”  He took the cards back, and spun them around.  Bellamy couldn’t tell how what Monty was doing was any different than what he’d done, but there was still the point that Monty was actually able to make the trick work and Bellamy wasn’t.

“You know,” Echo said, flipping a page in the instruction manual they’d found in the rocket without looking up at them.  Bellamy wasn’t really sure what the manual was even for, and Raven and Monty hadn’t used it for anything, but Echo had been reading it for the last few days, claiming that they were so boring that even the manual was more exciting.  “If you keep teaching everyone all your magic tricks, then everyone will know how they work and they won’t be magic anymore.”

“You’re refusing to learn, so you won’t know,” Harper said, taking the cards from Monty and trying herself.  “So they’ll still work on you.”

“I can still hear you talking about them,” Echo pointed out, flipping another page.  “Just because I won’t know how to do them doesn’t mean I won’t know how they work.”

Harper started to say something, but the music they’d been listening to crackled out to be replaced by Murphy’s voice.

 _“Hi Bellamy,”_ he said, the pitch higher than usual.  Bellamy could only assume it was supposed to be an imitation of Clarke.   _“It’s been 432 days since Praimfaya, and I miss you so much.  I want to have a hundred more of your babies, Bellamy, and I’m so horny without you here—”_

_“Murphy, what the fuck?”_

There was the sound of a scuffle, mostly overridden by Murphy’s voice and the laughter of those on the Ark.

 _“Clarke, hands on the wheel,”_ Murphy admonished in his usual tone before switching back to his “Clarke” voice.  _“Bellamy, I want you so bad.  If you take too long, I might have to resort to fucking Murphy.  He’s so hot, I can already tell it’s going to be the best fuck of my life.  It’ll probably even make me forget all about you.”_

Even Bellamy couldn’t stop himself from laughing, though he knew he was growing red.  There was no way Clarke would ever say any of that to him, at least not over the radio.  He also didn’t think Clarke was going to leave him for Murphy anytime soon.  Not that they were technically together for her to leave him or anything.  He did feel bad for Clarke, though, who seemed to be doing everything she could to get Murphy to shut up without crashing the rover.

_“Give me the fucking radio.”_

_“No.  You’re driving.  Don’t you know it’s illegal to drive and talk on the phone at the same time?  I’m saving you the ticket.”_

_“We’re literally the only people on the surface of the planet,”_ Clarke pointed out, practically growling out the words.  _“There’s no one to give us a ticket, and there’s literally only sand for me to crash into.  Just give me the fucking radio.”_

Murphy ignored her.  _“As I was saying, Bellamy, you’d better get down here soon before I leave you for Murphy.  He’s so dreamy and—”_

_“I swear I will drive us into the hole.”_

“Poor Clarke,” Harper said.  It sounded less sympathetic than she probably intended, though, as the words were said around giggles.

 _“You wouldn’t do that to the kid, Clarke_ ,” Murphy pointed out. _“At least make threats you can follow through on.  Plus we left the hole behind, like, an hour ago.  I could easily take over the rover before we get anywhere near it.”_

_“Fuck you.”_

_“Do you hear that, Bellamy?  She already wants to fuck me.  You’d better hurry up and come back before she forgets she’s in lo—”_

_“Murphy!”_

Bellamy’s heart almost stopped at the words Murphy almost said.  He knew Clarke loved him, or, rather, he was pretty sure she did.  He loved her more than anything, at least, and he thought she felt the same way.  Clarke hadn’t quite said as much—or maybe she had, in the days before they’d gotten the radio working—but he felt like she was saving them to say in person.

But it seemed she’d told Murphy.  Or Murphy was just being Murphy (read: a dick) and teasing her.

 _“Fine.  I’m done.”_   Murphy sighed heavily, as if stopping teasing Clarke was a particular hardship for him. _“Seph, anything you want to say to your dad?”_

Bellamy perked up again at that, for the second or two of silence before Seph started screaming.  It was a cheerful scream, or as cheerful as a scream could sound, anyway, and was at a pitch far higher than any human had any right to make.

“Jesus,” Echo muttered, finally looking up from her manual.  “What the fuck is wrong with your kid?”

Bellamy shrugged, and the screaming went on.  He was hoping for another _dada_ , which he hadn’t heard since Murphy had shown him the first time, or even _mama_ , which he’d heard a few times and which Murphy insisted was his name.  He had no idea what this ungodly shriek was, but was infinitely glad Octavia had never made it as a baby.  There was no way they’d have been able to hide her sixteen months let alone sixteen years if she’d ever made a sound like this.

The shriek eventually cut off, and the radio was silent for a few moments other than what was presumably Clarke laughing and some unknown song that was playing softly.

 _“Well said, kid,”_ Murphy finally said, laughing too. _“Well, guys, we made it past the hole.  Should make it to the bunker in sometime in the next couple days.  It’s been fun.  Don’t worry, Bellamy.  I promise I won’t steal your girl if you make it back on time.”_

_“Murphy, I swear to fuck—”_

The radio cut off, and Clarke and Murphy’s singing cut back in.  It was something about all being in this together, and was one of their better songs, which wasn’t saying much.

“Did you hear that?” Raven asked, and Bellamy glanced her way.  She was at the far end of the table, ignoring the magic tricks and tinkering with some sort of device.

“Hear what?” Harper asked, still giggling.  “How horny Clarke apparently is, or the demon that just possessed Bellamy’s kid?”

Raven snorted.  “Neither,” she said, already picking up a tablet.  “There was music in the background.  Like actual music and not this noise.”  She gestured above them, at the offkey voices of Clarke and Murphy drifting through the air.

Echo dropped the manual on the table with more force than necessary as she sunk into her seat.  “Are you saying they’ve had actual music they could’ve been playing us instead of this shit?”  She grabbed the cards off the table, flipping them around in her hand and perfectly executing the trick that Bellamy and Harper had been trying to learn all morning.

“Wait.”  Monty said, pushing to his feet and staring at Raven.  “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

Raven raised an eyebrow.  “If you’re thinking we could isolate it from the file and have music that actually sounds good, then yes.”

She shared a grin with Monty, and then they were running away, presumably to the control room to work on isolating the music, whatever that meant.

“So.”  Bellamy leaned back, trying and failing to look casual.  “You don’t think Clarke will actually fuck Murphy, do you?”

“No.”  Harper snorted, shooting him an amused look.  “She’s in love with _you_ , idiot.”  She pulled the cards from Echo’s hands, trying the trick again and failing.  “How the fuck did you do that?”

Echo smirked and picked up her manual.  “A magician never reveals her secrets.”

 

**433 APF**

They were making good time.  They had to backtrack a significant amount, after going around the hole and all, but they were going pretty quickly.  They were listening to that song again, the one about walking 500 miles, both because it was a fantastic song and because Seph liked to join in for the _da da da da_ ’s, and it was honestly one of the cutest things Murphy had ever heard.  Clarke and Seph were in the back, and the sun was shining brightly enough that the power had barely started to drain from the rover.

All things considered, things were going a lot better than Murphy would have expected.

Which was why he should have expected it to go to shit.

He stopped the car abruptly, pulling on the break as he stared ahead.

“Clarke,” he whispered, though she was already making her way to the front to see why he’d stopped.

“What the fuck?” Clarke breathed, and he couldn’t think of a better way to put it.

Murphy hadn’t had much experience watching TV or movies while he was on the Ark.  He’d preferred books—not that he would’ve told anyone—and most of his free time had been spent learning everything he could to keep up with Clarke at their internship.  There was no TV after they’d been sent to the ground, and the only thing to watch in the lighthouse bunker was the video where the other dude who’d been in the lighthouse bunker killed himself.  Not exactly a fun time.

But their time in the lab had given them more than enough time to watch TV and movies, enough that Murphy had learned that there were certain things that happened at certain times.  Love declarations were usually interrupted.  Something always went wrong on a wedding day.  The underdog sports team would win the big game.

If his life had been a movie or a TV show, this was the point where the cheerful song would fade into the background or cut off entirely, as the situation turned from normal and happy to dire.  This was when the screen would turn black, so they could up the suspense with a commercial break, or, in that one show, Lemony Snicket would step in with some metaphor or a definition for some word that wasn’t entirely relevant or to tell you to stop watching.

But this wasn’t a TV show or a movie, so none of that happened.

This was real life, so the music continued to cheerily play as Clarke and Murphy stared down the wall of sand that was quickly coming towards them.

 

**435 APF**

The sandstorm, for lack of a better term, sucked balls.  The sand wasn’t thick enough to entirely block out the sun, though it did make it significantly darker than it usually was at any time of the day, but it was more than thick enough to prevent them from seeing anything out the windows.  There hadn’t even been an argument about whether they’d wait it out or try to keep driving.  The hole was still fresh on their minds, and they didn’t want to run into another when they literally couldn’t see anything.

The rover’s battery was slowly draining, with not enough sunlight hitting the solar panels to keep it charging.  They tried saving the battery for night—or, rather, late afternoon, when the sand stopped letting in any light—so they wouldn’t have to sit in complete darkness for hours before they’d normally go to bed, but they did occasionally power it on to recharge the battery of the MP3 player.  They’d packed some Bluetooth speakers, and those had lasted about a week without a charge back at the lab, so at least they’d had some music.

But the sandstorm was the worst.  It’d been ten days since they’d officially left the lab, which meant it had been ten days since any of them had showered.  They hadn’t brought much to do since one of them would have been driving all the time, and they’d already worked through all the stories in the MadLibs book enough times that it wasn’t even funny anymore.  Seph was cranky from being holed up in the rover for so long, and Clarke and Murphy were feeling cramped from being unable to stand in more than a hunched half-crouch.

Clarke was bored out of her mind, and she’d really thought they would’ve made it to the bunker by now.  Even with going around the hole, she didn’t think they’d have to do too much back tracking.  She’d actually been excited to see her mom, more excited than she’d been in a long time.

But they were stuck in this fucking sandstorm.

“It still doesn’t look like it’s clearing up,” she said into the radio.  “Not that I have any idea how to tell if it’s clearing up.”

She finished up the call, hanging up the radio, and made her way back into the back of the rover.  Murphy was reading the Hunger Games to Seph, the baby perched in his lap.  Her daughter was teething on the leg of her teddy bear, and seemed to be paying much more attention than she should be as Murphy told her about Katniss dropping the tracker jackers’ nest on the other tributes.

Seph held out her arms as Clarke plopped down beside them, and Clarke extracted her from the cage of Murphy’s arms.

“Is Murphy making you hear about kids killing each other?” she cooed as Seph nuzzled into her neck.

Murphy scoffed, closing the book and putting it aside.  “She likes it.”

It didn’t take long for Seph to make it known that she only wanted her mom because she was hungry, and Clarke stretched out her legs while she nursed her daughter.

“We should give her something solid at dinner tonight,” Murphy suggested, flipping through a parenting book they’d found at the lab.  “Or like something solid but mushy.  She’s definitely teething, and this says we should be starting her on solids around now.”

Clarke nodded.  “I think we’ve got peas still,” she said.  “Or mashed potatoes.”

Seph pushed away a few moments later, squirming in Clarke’s grip.

“Done already?” she asked, frowning at her daughter as she pulled her shirt back down.  “You better not be hungry again in five minutes.”

Seph kept squirming, refusing to stay still long enough for Clarke to burp her.  She sighed, standing her daughter in front of her and holding her hands.

“What are we gonna do with you?” she asked, and Seph blew a raspberry at her.

She wiggled around a few more minutes, bouncing in place.  She had so far refused to try walking, even holding onto their hands, but she liked to bounce.  Clarke figured she’d be walking pretty quickly once the sandstorm stopped shaking the rover and she had a more stable walking surface.

“Moph!” Seph yelled, leaning backwards in Clarke’s grip until her head was upside down.

Murphy dropped the parenting book and stared at her, and Seph let out a squealing giggle.

“Moph!” she yelled again, tugging on Clarke’s grip.

“Did you say my name?” Murphy asked, reaching out to tug the baby back into his arms.

“Moph,” she repeated, laughing as she grabbed his nose.

Murphy was grinning when he caught Clarke’s eye, and she grinned back.

“That’s me, kid,” he said, tickling Seph’s belly.  Clarke couldn’t help but laugh along with her daughter.

“I told you she was saying _mama_  before,” she told him, and Murphy waved her off.

“Let me have my moment.”

 

**439 APF**

It had been a week since the last message from Clarke and Murphy.  Clarke had never missed so much as a day before.

Raven was worried.  Of course she was worried.  But she tried not to let it show, since Bellamy had been a nightmare since the second day they’d missed.

“They’re fine,” she told him, even though they both knew there was no way she could actually know that.  “Sit down before you wear a hole through the Ark.”

Bellamy had been pacing the control room, not even pretending to help her.  She had gotten up late the night before to use the bathroom, and had heard him playing the files of their calls.  She was pretty sure he’d barely slept in days, and had been making sure he ate.  She wouldn’t let this be a repeat of when they’d thought Clarke and Murphy were dead.

He complied and sat in one of the other chairs, bouncing his knees with too much nervous energy.

“It doesn’t make any sense,” he said, for probably the thousandth time.  “Why wouldn’t they call?”

Raven sighed and put down her tools, wheeling her chair over to him.

“I don’t know,” she admitted.  “Maybe they made it to the bunker and the radio waves won’t reach us from there.”

“Maybe there’s a storm,” Harper supplied from across the room.  “We couldn’t reach the Ark during that storm at the Dropship, remember?”

Raven did remember, though she tried not to, and Bellamy nodded.  It didn’t seem to calm him down.

“It doesn’t make sense,” he repeated, pushing out of the chair to resume his pacing.  “Clarke would call.  She always calls.  What if something happened to them?”

“Maybe they’re dead.”

Raven’s head snapped towards Echo, who was sitting against a wall polishing her sword.  Bellamy’s pacing froze.  Echo looked up, frowning at them.

“What?” she asked.  “Maybe they’re dead.  Maybe they’re in the bunker.  Maybe there’s a storm.  Maybe their radio broke.  Maybe Clarke and Murphy finally hooked up and now they feel like it’s too awkward to call.  Trying to figure out why they’re not calling isn’t going to do anything.  I’ve tried to kill Clarke before, and you all call Murphy a cockroach.  Chances are they’re going to call any time now and everything will be fine and you’ll have worried for nothing.”

Bellamy resumed his pacing, and Raven dug her fingers into her thighs to keep herself from starting another argument with Echo.  It wasn’t worth it, no matter how much her suggesting Clarke and Murphy and Seph were dead had definitely screwed with Bellamy even more than this whole situation was already screwing with him.

“There’s a storm,” Raven said, and Bellamy looked over at her.  “Or they’re in the bunker.  They’re fine, Bellamy.”

He stared at her for a moment longer before leaving the room, no doubt to try to distract himself with Clarke’s messages.  Raven huffed out a sigh and glared at Echo.

“Thanks for that,” she said dryly, pushing to her feet.  She glanced over her shoulder as she made her way to the door.  “How’s that algae moonshine coming, Monty?  I feel like we need to get drunk tonight.”

Monty offered her a tight smile.  “I’ll see what I can do.”

Raven nodded her thanks and left the room, hoping Bellamy wasn’t too far gone for her to calm him down.

 

**440 APF**

They were running out of food.

Clarke hadn’t wanted to admit it, but they were.

They’d packed three weeks of food.  That would last them until day 446.  They’d thought it would have been more than enough to reach the bunker.

But they were running out.

“We need to start rationing,” she announced, and Murphy glanced up briefly before looking back down at Seph.

“And this little piggy went _wee, wee, wee_ all the way home,” he finished, and Seph laughed, kicking her feet in the air.  He sighed and looked up at Clarke.  “I know.”

“This thing has to be almost over,” Clarke said, though she didn’t really believe it.  It felt like they’d been stuck in the middle of this sandstorm for forever.  “How long can it really go on?”

Murphy shrugged.  There really wasn’t much else to say, and he’d already told her that none of the sandstorms he’d gone through while crossing the Dead Zone with Jaha had lasted anywhere near this long.

Seph rolled onto her stomach and crawled across the rover to Clarke, pushing herself onto her knees to reach up.  Clarke picked up her daughter, and cradled her to her chest.

They weren’t going to survive much longer in this storm.  Clarke knew that, and Murphy knew that.  Hell, Seph probably knew that too.

She was so stupid.  Why had she thought leaving the lab had been a good idea?  They’d been safe there.  They hadn’t had to ration food.  They had a working shower and TV.  Had their reasons for leaving really been important enough to risk all that?

Murphy sighed loudly and stretched out, poking her in the leg with his toes.  “Sharpay, Effie Trinket, and Rose’s fiancé.”

Clarke looked up at him, frowning in confusion.  “What?”

“Sharpay, Effie, and Rose’s fiancé,” he repeated, and Clarke rolled her eyes once she realized what he was doing.

“Kill Rose’s fiancé because he’s a douche and he didn’t deserve to survive the _Titanic_ ,” she said, and Murphy nodded.

“Of course.”

“Marry Sharpay cause she’s loaded.”  Murphy nodded again.  Another obvious choice.  “And I guess that means I’m fucking Effie.”  Clarke adjusted her hold on Seph, who seemed to have decided it was time for a nap.  “The three dads from Mamma Mia.”

Murphy groaned.  “Not fair,” he said.  “Can’t I just fuck and marry them all and not kill any of them?”

Clarke laughed.  “That’s not how this works.”

Murphy grumbled that it should be how it work, and then started weighing the pros and cons of each dad.  Clarke listened as he debated with himself, and almost managed to forget that they were starting to run out of time.

 

**444 APF**

They were just lying in the rover on top of the blankets, because there was nothing better to do.  The speaker had died earlier that day, and they had so little battery power left that neither of them wanted to waste it charging the thing, no matter how boring it was.

Murphy was hungry.  He’d been taking smaller portions than even Clarke’s since they’d started rationing, and even with that he didn’t think the food would last much longer.  They’d thought they’d packed enough food for three weeks, but neither of them had been thinking about making it last when they’d first started out.  He knew he’d definitely eaten bigger portions than he necessarily had to.

Seph was asleep, and Clarke was reading aloud from a book they packed, neither of them paying too much attention to the words.  It was about a bunch of boys whose plane had crashed and now they were living on an island and going crazy.  Clarke had said she’d started reading it on the Ark in English class, after he’d been arrested but before she had.  It reminded Murphy a little too much of their Dropship days, and that Jack kid in particular reminded him an uncomfortable amount of himself at the Dropship.

They were killing Simon, which Murphy had seen coming, ripping them apart with their teeth, and Clarke stopped in the middle of her sentence, dropping the book onto her chest with a sigh.

Murphy didn’t look at her, still mulling in his head about whether he’d have lost it as much as Jack had if things had gone even slightly differently.

“You know,” Clarke said, laughing slightly.  “I miss when our problems were about what we were gonna have for dinner and not which one of us is gonna eat the other when we run out of food.”

Murphy looked over at her then.  He didn’t bother to wonder where the thought of eating each other had come from—they hadn’t discussed it, but the way these fictional children were going, he was pretty sure they were going to eat Simon.  He assumed Clarke had come to the same conclusion, or scanned further down the page and read them doing so.

“That’s not a problem, Clarke,” he told her after a moment, rolling his head back so he could stare at the roof again.  “You’re gonna eat me.”

“What?” Clarke sat up, frowning down at him.  “No.  Of course it’s a problem, Murphy.  You can’t just give up and decide you’re gonna be the one getting eaten.”

“Don’t be stupid, Clarke.”  Murphy didn’t bother to sit up, just shot her an unimpressed look from his position on his back.  “When we run out of food, you’re gonna eat me.  Someone has to look after Seph, and it just makes sense that that person would be her mom.”

“Um, no.”  Clarke sounded affronted, and Murphy had no idea why she would be.  Did she want to get eaten?  “Why wouldn’t you eat me?  That would make more sense.  I still haven’t lost all the pregnancy weight, so the extra fat would give you more energy.”

She had a point, Murphy allowed, but it didn’t matter.

“Clarke, no,” he told her calmly.  “You’ll eat me.  I’m fine with that.  I’ve made my peace.  You have Seph and Bellamy and your mom.  I don’t have anyone.  No one will miss me when you eat me.”

Clarke scoffed, and kicked him lightly in the shin.  “You’re such an idiot,” she said, and Murphy didn’t dispute that.  “I’d miss you, Murphy.  You have me.”

He looked at her then, at the fierce look on her face.  If they somehow managed to survive long enough without having to eat each other, he was comforted by the fact that he did have her.  He had her and Seph, and, after everything they’d been through, he didn’t think he’d lose them even when Bellamy cam back down.

But he was Murphy, and if Murphy was anything it was that he didn’t do feelings.

“I wouldn’t have you if I ate you,” he pointed out, and Clarke rolled her eyes.

“Yeah, you would,” she told him, laying back down beside him.  “I’d just be inside your stomach.”

Murphy glanced over at her, and couldn’t contain the snort of laughter.  It wasn’t long before they were both laughing, far more than was probably appropriate when discussing potentially eating each other.

“This is stupid,” Clarke declared, after their giggles had died down.  “No one’s going to have to eat anyone else because we’re going to make it to the bunker before we get to that stage.”

“Of course,” Murphy agreed, though he could tell neither of them completely believed her words.

He knew that at the rate this sandstorm was going, there was a good chance they would get to that stage.  He knew there was a shotgun in the glove compartment, and that he’d use it on himself the moment it became absolutely necessary.  He wouldn’t make Clarke do it, but he’d make sure she and Seph survived long enough to make it to the bunker.

Clarke continued the story where she’d left off.

They didn’t eat Simon.

 

**449 APF**

Murphy turned the Tupperware in his hands, frowning down at it.  They were almost out of food, even with the rationing, and he knew they’d run out in a few days.

He’d had a few bites that morning for breakfast, same as Clarke, and now he got to eat a few more bites for dinner.

He was hungry.  He wasn’t going to dispute that.  Days of barely eating anything would make anyone hungry.

But they were going to be out of food soon.

Clarke was in the front of the rover with her own meager dinner, nursing Seph and talking softly on the radio.  Seph had been getting crankier the longer they’d been stuck in the rover.  Murphy didn’t blame her.  He was pretty sure he was getting crankier too.

Murphy pushed the food around with his fork.  Everything in him was screaming at him to eat it, to open the rest of the Tupperware and eat that, too.

But he was hesitating.

They were going to run out soon, in days or maybe less.  They had no idea how much longer the sandstorm was going to go on for, how much longer it would be before they could reach the bunker and get more food.  They were getting low on water, too.  That wouldn’t last much longer than the food.

At the rate things were going, they were going to run out of both and starve to death, unless the dehydration killed them first.  Murphy, Clarke, and Seph.

It wasn’t fair.  It wasn’t fair to Seph, that she might die before her first birthday.  It wasn’t fair to Clarke, that he’d made the call to leave the bunker and now there was a strong chance they were going to die.  It wasn’t fair to Bellamy, that Clarke and Seph might die before he made it back, that he’d never get to meet his daughter or tell Clarke he loved her.

It wasn’t fair.

If they both kept eating, they were going to run out of food faster.  If they both kept eating, they were all going to die.

But if one of them stopped, it gave the others a better chance.

Murphy was hungry.  Murphy was so hungry.

But he opened the other Tupperware, the one holding the meager remains of the last of their pasta, and dumped his meal back in.

 _Happy birthday, Max_ , he thought, stashing the food back against the wall.  _Papa might be coming to see you soon._

 

 **452 APF**  

Clarke stared down at the piece of granola bar, at the last bit of food left in the rover.  It was too little to even be considered a bite, just a little more than a nibble.

This was it.  They were out of food.

Clarke broke it in half with shaking fingers.  She’d been shaking for days, couldn’t seem to make it stop.

“Here,” she said, holding half of it out to Murphy.  She stuck her own half in her mouth, willing it to last, but it was gone before she’d really tasted it.

Murphy shook his head, pushing her hand back towards her.  “No, Clarke,” he said.  “You should eat it.”

Clarke sighed.  “Murphy—”

“Clarke, think about,” he interrupted, frowning at her.  “Me not eating or drinking, that only hurts me.  If you don’t get food and water, that hurts you _and_ the baby.  Please just eat it.”

Clarke stared at him.  This was like when he’d insisted she’d be the one eating him all over again.  It wasn’t like this little bit of granola bar would make the difference between living and dying.  It wouldn’t even help ease the pains in their stomachs. 

But the way Murphy said it, like he’d long since come to this conclusion, made Clarke realize something else.

“How long?”

Murphy opened his mouth then closed it again, blinking at her.  Clearly that wasn’t what he’d expected her to say.  “What?”

Clarke frowned at him.  “How long have you not been eating?”

Murphy couldn’t look at her, choosing instead to stare down at Seph sleeping in his arms, and she knew then that she was right.

“Three days,” he finally said, still not looking up.

Clarke wasn’t sure whether to believe him or not.  She wouldn’t put it past Murphy to lie about how long he’d been starving himself for her and Seph, especially when she’d told him he wasn’t allowed to give up just days ago.  Her already aching stomach dropped, the guilt of not noticing managing to slightly dull the sharpest of the pains.

“When’s the last time you drank anything?” she whispered, praying he wasn’t stupid enough to dehydrate himself, too.

“This morning,” he told her, and she sighed in relief.  “Same as you.”

She thrust out her hand again, the little bit of granola bar perched on her palm.  “You’re eating this.”

Murphy sighed, finally looking back up at her.  “Clarke—”

“No,” she snapped.  “I can’t lose you, okay?  You need to stay alive, too.”

Murphy stared at her for a long moment.  She thought he’d argue, that he’d point out that this was barely anything, that eating it wouldn’t miraculously save his life, that no matter which of them ate it, they were still out of food.

But he didn’t.  Maybe he was too tired and hungry to argue, like she was.  Maybe he was too hungry to not eat the granola bar, as unsatisfyingly small as it was.  Maybe he actually took her words to heart, realized that she didn’t want him to die.

Whatever the reason, he took the granola bar from her and popped it into his mouth.

 

**454 APF**

Murphy was so hungry.  He was more hungry than he could remember ever being, more hungry than when he’d been on Skybox rations or when he’d been held prisoner by the Grounders, which was saying a lot.

He was so hungry that he couldn’t sleep, hadn’t been able to fall asleep at all the night before.  He could feel Clarke breathing from where she was curled up against him, and knew she hadn’t fallen asleep either.

They didn’t talk.  Talking took a lot of energy, which they didn’t have.  So they just lay there in the dark, wrapped around each other under their blankets, the rover for once not shaking from the wind around them.

Murphy’s eyes snapped open.

The rover wasn’t shaking.

He lay there for a few more moments, confirming it.  The rover wasn’t shaking, and he couldn’t hear the wind outside.

He extracted himself from Clarke, ignoring her questions of what he was doing, and tripped his way to the front of the rover.

He couldn’t see much, since the windshield had been covered in sand, so he carefully pushed open the door.

Above them were stars.  A clear night sky, no clouds in sight, and stars.

“It’s over,” he whispered, as Clarke crawled out of the rover behind him.  He turned to grin at her, lifting her up and spinning them around.  “It’s over.”

She laughed with him, pulling back to squeeze his hands.  “Don’t cry,” she admonished, and he raised a hand to his face to discover that, yes, he was crying.  “You’re wasting the water.”

“Hypocrite,” he laughed, reaching out to brush away her own tears.

They stayed out there for a few more minutes, grinning up at the stars and the moon.  The storm was over.  They could make it to the bunker before they ran out of water.  They could survive this.

They’d have to wait for the rover to charge before they continued, and dig out the wheels from where they’d been half buried in sand, but they could go.

They were going to survive.

*********

They still hadn’t heard from Clarke and Murphy.  Bellamy was so beyond worried that he didn’t know what to do with himself anymore.

They were saying they had made it to the bunker.  That was what they’d decided.  It didn’t explain why they hadn’t heard from them in so long, but it was the best option out of any that they could come up with.

They were playing cards, listening to the song that Raven and Monty had managed to isolate from the background of that radio message, the song that still had a bit where Seph’s scream blocked out the lyrics, and Bellamy was trying not to worry.

They all sighed in relief when the song cut out, the radio crackling to life.

Of course, their relief was short lived, turning to horror as soon as Clarke started talking.

_“It’s officially been three weeks since the sandstorm started, and it’s finally over.  We have to wait a few hours for the rover to recharge, but then we’ll be back on our way to the bunker.  It’s been two days since we ran out of food, but I think we should have enough water to make it there._

_“The fresh air feels so nice.  I’ve missed being outside.  I miss food.  I’m so hungry.”_

She cut herself off after that, their music cutting back in, and no one spoke for a long moment.

“Sandstorm?” Harper whispered, glancing between the others with wide eyes.  “They’ve been in a sandstorm for three weeks?”

Bellamy felt like he was going to be sick.  The sandstorm explained what had been blocking the radio calls.  They’d been trapped in the rover for three weeks.  They’d run out of food.  They were starving.  Clarke _thought_ they had enough water to make it to the bunker.  Thought.  She didn’t know.  They could have starved to death, or died from dehydration, if the sandstorm had gone on longer, and Bellamy wouldn’t have known.  They’d come down in four years and have no idea what happened to them.

“What the fuck?” Echo said.

Bellamy had thought that hearing from them again would ease his worry, would make things better.  But it didn’t.  Before he could at least pretend to believe they were in the bunker.  He could use the benefit of the doubt to tell himself they were okay.

But they weren’t.  They were starving.  They hadn’t eaten in two days, and he assumed they’d been rationing before that.  Clarke and Murphy weren’t stupid.  They’d have made the food last.

They could die.  They could die, and he’d never get to meet his daughter.  He’d never see Clarke again, never get to hold her close and finally tell her how much she meant to him.

They could die.

Bellamy couldn’t hold it in anymore, and managed to turn away from the table so his vomit hit the floor.

 

**456 APF**

“Fuck!” Clarke screamed, slamming her fists down on the steering wheel.  “Fuck, fuck, fuck!”

Nothing was going right.  She was hungry and thirsty and tired.  She’d all but stopped producing milk, which meant their water was being rationed three ways now.  They still hadn’t reached the fucking bunker.

They’d gone further out of their way around the hole than they’d thought, apparently.  They were running out of water, and they should’ve reached the bunker long before now.

They were exhausted and starving and Clarke wanted more than anything to just get to the bunker.

The acid rain had started a few hours ago.  Murphy had a radiation burn on his hand now, because he’d tried to refill some of their water containers before they realized what the rain was.  It had been coming down steadily, but they’d kept driving.

But it had picked up, and now Clarke could barely see three feet in front of the rover.

She put the rover in park and stared out the window, glaring at the rain as if she could intimidate it into stopping.  She felt like crying, but her eyes were so dry she knew the tears wouldn’t come.

So she punched the steering wheel again.

“Fuck!”

 

**457 APF**

The rain cleared up enough for them to drive around dinner time.  Or, rather, it would be dinner time if they’d had any dinner to eat.

Clarke had told him she was going to drive until it got too dark for her to see, and Murphy had half heartedly agreed.

He was laying in the back with Seph.  It took so much effort to keep his eyes open.  He was just so tired.

He knew he was further into starvation than Clarke.  He’d stopped eating three days before she had.  He couldn’t remember the specifics of how long you could survive without food, but it’d been eight days.

He hadn’t pulled out the gun.  He was going to, but they were going to get to the bunker soon.  They could make it that long without having to eat each other.

Seph was curled up on his chest, sucking at a piece of cloth they’d dipped in the water.  She’d protested it at first, but now she whimpered when it ran dry.  That was all she’d been doing for the last few days, whimpering.  She was just as tired and hungry as the rest of them, and had seemed to decide that crying wasn’t going to get her anymore milk so it wasn’t worth the effort.

Murphy didn’t know a lot about baby psychology, but he was pretty sure that was a bad sign.

He rubbed his hand over Seph’s back, his eyes drooping closed.

“You’re gonna be okay,” he whispered, adjusting himself against their pillows.  “You’re gonna survive.  I promise.”

 

**459 APF**

Clarke shot worried glances over her shoulder at Murphy as she drove.  He was barely awake now, conscious for maybe half an hour at a time before falling asleep again.  It was more than worrying.

He’d barely stirred an hour or so ago, when she’d shouted out after spotting Polis on the horizon.  It seemed shorter, but considering everything was sand, it made sense that some of the buildings might have fallen down.

They were coming up on the edges of the city now, and it seemed most of the city had collapsed.  It was just in time, Clarke mused as she navigated around the rubble.  They were almost out of water.  What they had would’ve lasted them another couple of days, maximum, and that was with the amount of rationing they were already doing.

“We’re here,” she told Murphy, who didn’t stir.  She looked instead at Seph, curled in on herself on the passenger seat and sucking on her damp cloth.  “We’re gonna get you some food real soon, okay, baby?”

Seph didn’t answer, and Clarke looked back out the window so she could try to direct herself towards the entrance to the bunker.

Thankfully, though the city had collapsed, Clarke was still able to pinpoint where the tower had been, to drive them as close to the entrance as she could.

She jumped out when she parked the rover, leaving Murphy and Seph behind for now.  She’d get them to open the door, and get someone to help her get them inside.

She felt hope bubbling in her chest for the first time in far too long.  They were going to make it.  They were going to see her mom and get something to eat and not die.

The hope crumbled as soon as it’d appeared.

The bunker was buried in rubble.  It’d take more energy to dig them out than they and their meager amount of water could give.

But Clarke tried, scraping her hands as she pulled at the rubble, screaming for the people in the bunker to hear her, to let them in.

A particularly sharp piece sliced open her palm, and Clarke felt the energy drain from her body as she collapsed against a piece of building with a dry sob wracking through her body.

They were so close.

They were so close to safety, to food, and now it was gone.

What the fuck were they gonna do?

 

* * *

  _Oh, tears make kaleidoscopes in your eyes_  
_And hurt, I know you're hurting, but so am I_  
_And love, if your wings are broken_  
_Borrow mine so yours can open too_  
_Cause I'm gonna stand by you_  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry...
> 
> Comments help me not get the flu and kudos acknowledge that you're pretty sure everything's gonna just get worse in the next chapter.
> 
> Come yell at me on Tumblr at probably-voldemort!
> 
> (Next chapter's song is Beside You by Marianas Trench)


	9. i'm just trying (to keep this together)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Surprise! It's a day early!
> 
> So at first I was contemplating saving this for a Valentine's Day update but then decided that that was mean and I'd let you suffer enough. (Not that this chapter will ease your suffering or anything lbr) Uni's out on a snow day today which has put me in a fantastic mood so I was like you know what? Let's ruin everyone else's day with a fuck ton of angst and make my day even better by reading your comments of how much you hate me lol
> 
> We have a fuck ton of snow here and it's amazing and it's literally making my life fantastic. Midterms who? Doesn't matter. There's snow. I've built, like, six snowmen. Its rad.
> 
> Anyway, I won't prolong your wait anymore. Please don't hate me too much.

_When it's in your spine_  
_Like you've walked for miles_  
_And the only thing you want is just to_  
_Be still for a while_

* * *

 

**459 APF**

Clarke had no idea what she was doing.  She didn’t know what they could do now.  They weren’t getting into the bunker.  There was no way they had anywhere near enough water to make it back to the lab, even if they managed to not get caught in another sand or acid storm.  And everything was sand.  There had been no sign of any sort of life in the two months since they’d first left the lab.

She had no fucking idea what she could do to keep them alive.

So she picked a direction at random and started driving.

Maybe they’d find somewhere with water or animals.  Maybe they’d find a whole civilization somewhere.  Maybe they’d find nothing but more sand and sometimes a rock or two until they died of dehydration.

But there was nothing else to do, so she drove.

*********

_“The bunker is buried.  We can’t get in.”_

The words had ripped through Bellamy’s chest the first time he’d heard them, when Clarke’s broken whisper had carried through the Ark just after lunch, and they ripped through him now, too.

He didn’t know why he kept coming back to this message.  He didn’t know why he couldn’t just listen to the happy ones and cry, why he had to keep listening, over and over, as Clarke outlined how screwed they were.

None of this was fair.  He’d left Clarke and Murphy to die, so the rest of them could live, and he’d mourned them.  He’d mourned Clarke and all the things he hadn’t been able to tell her, the life they’d never get to have, and it almost killed him.

And then he’d heard her voice.  He’d heard her, and she was alive and so was Murphy, and he had hope again.  He’d see her again, one day, in five years when the ground was safe for him.  And then she was pregnant, and they were having a baby, and now he had a daughter, and he was supposed to meet her, damnit.  He was supposed to meet his daughter in less than four years.

He was supposed to meet her.  He was supposed to tell Clarke he loved her.  They were supposed to be a family.

They weren’t supposed to die of starvation and dehydration in a desert while he listened from space, unable to do anything to help.

He wasn’t supposed to lose them.

The file ended and then started again, Clarke’s voice filling his room and seeping into his bones, and he just stared up at the roof.

He barely noticed when Raven came in, or when she turned off the tablet.  She sunk onto the bed next to him, laying there close enough to touch if he decided to reach out.

She didn’t tell him everything would be okay.  She didn’t tell him that Clarke and Murphy would find food and water, that his daughter’s life wouldn’t end barely eight months after it’d started.

She didn’t say anything, and they just lay there in silence.

*********

Murphy woke to Clarke shaking his shoulder, which seemed to be how he woke the majority of the time now.  He let her help him pour his tiny share of water down his throat, and moved his heavy arms to wrap around her when she tucked herself into his side.

“I’ll find somewhere tomorrow,” she promised, whispering the words against his skin, and Murphy wished he could believe her.

“Okay,” he agreed.

Sleep wanted to take him over again, and he wanted to let it, but he couldn’t.  He had to say it first, had to make sure Clarke knew, before it was too late.

“You should kill me,” he told her, the words steadier than they felt.  He didn’t want to die.  He wanted to live.  But it was down to him and Clarke, and if him dying could save her and Seph, he’d let her kill him in a heartbeat.

Clarke shook her head, holding him tighter.  “No.”

“Clarke,” he whispered, putting the energy that wasn’t going into speaking to brushing her arm with his hand.  “Clarke, if you and Seph eat me, you could make it back to the lab.  You should kill me.”

“No.”  She pushed away from him this time, staring down at him.  “I’m not killing you, Murphy, and we’re not gonna eat you.  I’m gonna find us somewhere with food and water tomorrow.  Okay?”

He watched her for a long moment.  He didn’t know how she hadn’t given up yet.  All they’d seen was sand.  They hadn’t seen so much as a bug.  There was probably nothing else alive on the surface of this planet other than the three of them.

They were all going to die if Clarke and Seph didn’t eat him.

He should’ve argued.  He should’ve pointed out everything they both knew but Clarke was too stubborn to acknowledge.  He should’ve insisted, should have antagonized her until she got out the gun and pulled the trigger.  He should’ve done everything in his power to make her kill him, so she and Seph could survive.

But he was tired, and his eyes were already falling shut.

So he whispered, “Okay,” like he believed her, and then the world faded into blackness.

 

**460 APF**

Bellamy was pacing.  He couldn’t sit down, couldn’t stay still.  He could barely make himself eat.  How could he eat, when Clarke and Seph and Murphy were down there with no food?  He only ate when Raven or Monty were watching him too closely, the algae sinking like a stone in his gut.

He didn’t know what to do.  None of them knew what to do.  They were supposed to be in the bunker right now.  Seph was supposed to be meeting her aunt and her grandma.  They were supposed to have food and water and somewhere to sleep.

They weren’t supposed to be starving still.

He couldn’t do anything.

So he paced.

The others were letting him do nothing, not that they were doing much themselves.  Even Echo seemed concerned for Clarke and Murphy and Seph.

But they were just giving him space and letting him spend every waking hour pacing, or obsessively replaying Clarke’s messages.

Each one was more bleak than the last.

They still hadn’t found any sign of life.

They were almost out of water.

It was getting harder and harder to wake Murphy up.

She hadn’t heard Seph make so much as a noise in days.

It was fucked up and cruel and not fair and none of this was supposed to be happening and he couldn’t do anything about it.

So he paced.

 

**461 APF**

It was a routine.  Wake up.  Make sure Murphy and Seph were alive.  Make sure everyone drank a bit of water.  Drive.  Make sure Murphy and Seph were alive.  Drink a little bit more water.  Drive.  Rinse and repeat until it got dark and then curl up next to Murphy to sleep.

Murphy tried to convince her every time to not waste the water on him, and she told him to stop trying to be a hero and that she’d find them somewhere safe soon.  As soon as he drank.  The next morning.  Soon.

She drove.  She kept them alive.  She drove some more.

That was it.

All there was was the sand all around them, and making sure Murphy and Seph hadn’t died in their sleep.

That was all that was left in this world.

So she kept driving.

 

**462 APF**

They were out of water.

They’d drank the last of it around noon, and Clarke could feel everything drain out of her.  All that was left was the damp cloth Seph was sucking on.  That was it.

She’d read that in ideal conditions, a person could go three days without water.  She couldn’t remember what the ideal conditions were, but she was pretty sure not eating and barely drinking anything for days disqualified this from the cut.

They had to find water soon.  They had to.  Or they were going to die.

She knew there was a solution, one that should be relatively easy compared to decisions she’d made in the past.  There was a shotgun in the glove compartment, and Murphy wasn’t going to last much longer anyway.

It was absolutely horrifying and terrifying and made her feel sick, but it was the only choice.

And there was a part of her that didn’t feel sick from the thought, a part that could almost feel her mouth starting to water.

That alone made her want to puke, but she didn’t.  She couldn’t, anyway.  There wasn’t anything in her stomach to puke up.

Horrifying or not, it still stood that it was the only option.

She stopped the rover and crawled into the back, and she woke him up and asked him.  He’d told her before, but she needed to be sure.  And he nodded.  He closed his eyes and nodded and told her to do what she needed to do for Seph, that he didn’t blame her for this, that whatever she had to do to keep Seph alive would be worth it.

*********

_“Murphy’s going to die soon.”_

Bellamy closed his eyes, pressing his fists against them.

_“I can tell.  I think he was lying about how long it’s been since he’s eaten anything, and his body’s probably already started shutting down.  He’s going to die.”_

“Fuck,” he heard Harper breathe, and Bellamy echoed the sentiment.

_“And I’m going to eat him.”_

His head snapped up at Clarke’s words, his wide eyes meeting Raven’s.  He opened his mouth to say something, to say anything, but he couldn’t speak, couldn’t make a sound.

_“I wouldn’t, if it was just the two of us.  I’d shoot him now and then shoot myself and get us out of this hell.  But Seph…”_

They were dying.  Bellamy knew that, he’d known that.  Clarke and Seph and Murphy were dying.

And Clarke was going to eat Murphy?

This didn’t make sense.  None of this made sense.  He didn’t know what she was talking about.

_“This isn’t what she deserves, Bellamy.  She was supposed to have a better life than us.”_

He could agree with that.  Seph deserved the world.  She deserved everything they could give her and more.

_“Tomorrow morning, I’m going to shoot Murphy in the head.  I’m going to cut the meat off his body and make a fire and cook it, and then I’m going to eat him and feed him to Seph, and we’re going to make it back to the lab and we’re going to live.”_

“Holy fuck,” Raven whispered, grabbing his arm, her nails digging into his skin.

_“I don’t want to.  God, I don’t want to do this.  I don’t want Murphy to die.  I don’t want to kill him.  I don’t want to be alone._

_“But this is for Seph.  She has to live, Bellamy.  She has to survive.  And she can’t survive on her own, so I have to do this.  I’m healthier than him.  I have the better chances of survival.  So I have to kill him so we can eat him, or we’re all going to die.”_

She was quiet, which was bad because it gave Bellamy time to think.  It gave him time to think about Clarke, down on the ground, almost entirely alone.  It gave him time to think about what she was going through, about how hard it must’ve been for her to come to that decision, what they’ve been going through for her to _have to_ come to that decision.

Harper puked and Monty held her.  Raven was crying quietly, her fingers still gripping him tightly, and Echo was staring into space, picking at her fingernails.

Bellamy felt like he was the one dying.  He’d left them on Earth.  That was his call.  He’d left them, and now Clarke had to kill the person who’d kept her alive so that she and their daughter would survive.

Clarke broke the silence with a bitter laugh. 

_“Seph’s gonna learn to eat solids by eating Murphy.  How fucked up is that?”_

*********

They didn’t have dinner that night.  Not that they’d eaten dinner in days, but they usually had a sip of water.

Clarke felt numb, and woke up Murphy when it got too dark to drive.

"Do you want anything?" she asked him.  She didn't really know what she could give him, what they had that he could possibly want, but she had to offer.

He shook his head.  "Just hold me?" he asked, and she nodded.  She could do that.

She curled up against him, pressing her cheek against his chest and wrapping him in her arms.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, and he stroked her hair.

“There’s nothing to be sorry for,” he told her.  “You do what you have to do to survive.”

Clarke shook her head.  “I shouldn’t have to do this to survive.”

“You shouldn’t,” Murphy agreed.  “But you do.  It’s okay.”

Clarke pulled her head up so she could see his face.  “It’s not,” she argued.

“It is.”  Murphy offered her a smile, small and broken and probably the last she’d ever see of his.  “I’ll see Emori soon.  And Max.  I’ll be okay.”

Clarke didn’t argue, but lay back down, pressing herself tightly against him.

“Maybe you won’t have to kill me,” he said, his words slurring as he drifted off.  “Maybe I’ll die in my sleep tonight.”

She didn’t answer.  She couldn’t answer.  But she hated that she hoped he wouldn’t wake up.

 

**463 APF**

Clarke woke him up that morning in silence, tucking Seph into his arms.  The baby was awake, staring up at him and not making a sound.  He hadn’t heard her say anything in days.  He missed when she called him Moph and missed even more when she called him Dada.

“Hey, kid,” he whispered, feeling his dry lips crack as he forced a smile onto his face.  He dimly noticed Clarke leaving the rover, giving him privacy in what were some of his last moments.  He brushed a finger over Seph’s face, her own tiny hand reaching up to grab at it.

“I’m sorry I’m leaving you,” he told her.  “I don’t want to.  I want to see you grow up.  I want to see the look on your daddy’s face when he finds out about you.  I want to teach you how to walk and how to climb a tree and the best ways to annoy your mom.  I don’t want to leave you, Seph.  I don’t.”  He swallowed around the lump in his throat.  “I love you, kid, okay?”

He heard something bang outside the rover, and waited for a moment before Clarke stopped whatever she was doing.

“Your mom’s gonna blame herself,” he continued.  “But I don’t.  Make sure she knows that, okay?  I don’t blame her.  She’s killing me so you and her can survive.  Not the death I wanted or the one I thought I’d get, but I think that’s a pretty good reason to die.”

He could feel his eyelids drooping shut again, knew he was only moments from passing out again.

“I love you,” he repeated, pressing a kiss to Seph’s forehead.  “Your papa loves you, kid.  Don’t ever forget that.”

*********

Murphy was asleep again when she looked back in the rover, and Seph had her hand wrapped in the drawstring of his hoodie.

She couldn’t believe she was going to do this, but she crawled back inside and picked up her daughter.  It didn’t take long for Seph to fall asleep, and Clarke tucked her on a pile of blankets where she could hopefully ignore what was going to happen.

She made her way back to Murphy then, brushed her hand over his cheek.  He looked so peaceful like this, like he was just taking a nap and not on the verge of death.  She hated to break the spell, but she had to.

“Murphy,” she whispered, shaking him awake.  He blinked blearily up at her and then nodded.

It took a lot of maneuvering, but between the two of them, they managed to get him out of the rover and onto the sand.  She lay him down and curled into his side, pressing her ear against his heart, still beating steadily in his chest.

“I don’t want to do this,” she told him.

“I know.”  His hand grabbed hers, fingers running over the skin.  “I don’t blame you, Clarke.”

She shook her head.  He couldn’t say that.  Of course he blamed her.  She was about to kill him and then eat him.  How could he not blame her?

“I don’t,” he repeated.  “Not even a little bit.  It’s what you have to do, okay?”

“I’ll miss you,” she told him, holding him tighter.  “I’m gonna miss you so much.”

“You’ll be okay.”

She shook her head but didn’t protest, just held onto him until his breathing evened out with sleep once more, and then as long as she could justify holding him after that.

But she had to do this.  Waiting wasn’t going to make it any easier, so she forced herself to stand and walk back to the rover.  Her hands shook as she pulled out the gun, as she checked if it was loaded and then walked back to him.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, her voice breaking on the words.  “I’m so sorry, Murphy.”

She leveled the gun, pointing the barrel straight at his head.  Her hands were steady, not shaking for the first time in a long time.  She took a deep breath and moved her finger to the trigger.

And then she dropped the gun.

She couldn’t do it.  She couldn’t kill someone, not again, not now, not _Murphy_.  Not even if it was the only way to keep herself and Seph alive.

She couldn’t do it.

So she dropped to the sand at his side, and pressed herself close, heaving dry sobs into his shoulder.

She woke him again after a while, and he stared at her in confusion.

“I can’t,” she told him, and he nodded, holding her close and brushing his fingers through her hair.

“It’s okay,” he said, like he thought she expected him to be upset.  “It’s okay.”

*********

They were gathered around the table, waiting for Clarke’s next message.  Monty hadn’t offered to make breakfast.  None of them could even think about eating, not with what Clarke was doing as they waited.

No one said anything.  No one had said a single thing since they’d sat down what seemed like hours ago.  Bellamy knew he hadn’t slept at all the night before, and he was pretty sure no one else had either.  It was Echo’s DJ day, and she hadn’t even attempted to play any music.

Bellamy didn’t know what to feel.  Murphy was a dick, but he was still his friend.  Murphy didn’t deserve to be eaten.  No one deserved to be killed and eaten.  It was horrifying, and he knew Clarke would hate herself for it.  With no one to talk to about it for years, he didn’t know what she'd do.

But eating Murphy was the only chance Clarke and Seph had to live.  If Clarke didn’t kill Murphy, he’d still die, and they’d die with him.  It was the only choice, as much as it made him sick.

So they waited.  They waited for Clarke to call and tell them what she did.  He’d read somewhere once that human flesh tasted a lot like pork.  He didn’t know if it was true, and found himself morbidly wondering whether Clarke would think that when she ate Murphy.  He felt sick for even thinking about it.

He wondered if she’d tell Seph what she did, what she had to do, if she’d tell their daughter that the only reason she was still alive was because they ate Murphy.  He wondered how Seph would take that, living in a world of only the two of them and never having to make the kinds of decisions they’d been making since they were sent to the ground.  He wondered how it would change Clarke.

They waited in silence until the radio crackled to life, Harper grabbing onto Monty and Raven pressing her face into her hands.

_“I couldn’t do it.”_

Bellamy felt like he was going to be sick as he listened to Clarke go on, telling them how she couldn’t kill Murphy, how she knew this was basically condemning all three of them to death.

He felt sick because he wasn’t relieved.  He felt sick because none of his thoughts were _oh thank god Murphy’s still alive and no one has to go cannibalistic._   He felt sick because all he felt was the hope drain out him as he realized that the only way now for Clarke and Seph to survive was for them to find the impossible, to find somewhere with food or at least water, or for Murphy to die on his own sooner rather than later. 

He felt sick because he found himself praying that Murphy wouldn’t wake up again.

*********

She’d driven all day.  That’s all there was to do, drive and wait for them to start dying.

Murphy and Seph were asleep, cuddled together in the back of the rover.  Clarke needed space, needed air, so she was lying in the sand outside, staring up at the stars and pretending she could pick out the Ark.

They weren’t going to last much longer, maybe a day or so before the dehydration took them.  Not killing Murphy wasn’t saving him.  It was just condemning them all into a slower death.

But she couldn’t do it.  He’d asked her, later, to let him do it.  She’d found herself handing him the gun, curling back up against him, holding him tightly as he pressed it to his temple.  She’d waited, her eyes squeezed shut, for him to pull the trigger.

He couldn’t do it, either.

So they hadn’t moved anywhere.  Physically, they’d moved, from one spot of sand to another.  But they were still just a couple of kids, scared of dying but with no way to prevent it.

She pulled the transmitter of the portable radio closer to her mouth.  There were so many things she wanted to tell Bellamy before she died.  So many things she wanted him to hear.

But she was scared.  She was scared of dying, of him dying.  She was scared of making him die if he heard her words.  She was terrified of so many things.

So she didn’t tell him any of them.

*********

Bellamy was alone, staring out the observation window down at Earth.  They were on the wrong side, so he wasn’t able to see where Clarke was right now.

He watched the world turn below him as the radio crackled to life.

_“I don’t know what to do.”_

Bellamy closed his eyes, tears sliding freely down his face as he listened to her broken voice.

_“Which would make me a worse mom?  Shooting her now, shooting us all, and ending it before our bodies completely shut down?  Or letting her continue to starve to death?  Because I don’t know, Bellamy.  I don’t know what to do.”_

Bellamy bit down on his fist, trying to keep a sob from escaping.  It wasn’t fair.  It wasn’t fair that Clarke had to make these decisions, that she had to keep making these decisions.  It wasn’t fair that he was in space and they had enough algae to last them as long as they needed, and Clarke had to decide between killing them all or letting them continue to starve.

It wasn’t fair.

 _“I was ready for tantrums and potty training and fixing her up after she falls out of a tree and breaks her arm,”_ she continued.  _“I was ready for normal mom things, Bellamy.  Not this.  Not having to decide what the best way is for our daughter to die.  Not hoping that Murphy dies soon so we can eat him without me having to kill him.  Not trying to figure out the best way to cook a person so I won’t just puke him back up.”_

He pressed his face against the cold glass.  He didn’t want this.  He didn’t want to be up here without them, without his family, while they slowly died down on Earth.  He didn’t want to find out what he’d do when they died, how he’d react to Clarke being dead for the second time.  He didn’t want to learn how much it wold destroy him.

 _“I don’t know what to do.”_   Clarke’s voice was barely a whisper. _“She doesn’t deserve this.  We never should have left the fucking lab.”_

Clarke was quiet for a while, the only sound coming through the radio her ragged breathing.

 _“I can’t even cry,”_ she finally sobbed.  _“I’m crying, but there’s not even enough water left in me to make tears._

_“I’m so tired.  Maybe we’ll all just die in our sleep tonight, go to sleep and never wake up.  It’d be peaceful, at least.  Painless.”_

Bellamy shook his head, mouthing words he didn’t know, words she couldn’t hear.  He didn’t want this.  This wasn’t supposed to happen.

Clarke’s next words were so quiet, so weak and broken they shattered his heart.

_“I don’t want to die, Bellamy.  I don’t want to.”_

She didn’t say anything else and hung up the radio at some point, but Bellamy kept lying there, pressed up against the window.  He didn’t know what to do.  He’d never felt this helpless before.

This was his family.  Clarke and Seph were his family.  His family, his responsibility.

But he’d left her to die.  She hadn’t died, not a first, but now they were both going to.

And he couldn’t do a single fucking thing.

 

**464 APF**

Clarke wanted to give up.  She wanted more than almost anything to just park the rover and curl up with Murphy and Seph and just die.

But she couldn’t.  She had to keep trying, for Seph, for Murphy, for herself.  She had to find water or die trying.

So she drove.

She passed sand and more sand and oh look there was a rock and then it was just more sand.

Until a shadow passed over the sand in front of her, and she strained forward to see what it was.

“A bird,” she whispered, her mouth so dry she could barely croak out the word.  She grabbed the radio and pressed her lips close, telling Bellamy about her discovery.  “I see a bird.”

She debated pulling the gun from the glove compartment and shooting it.  It would be the easy decision, if she could manage to get her hands to stop shaking long enough to aim.  She’d shoot the bird and then cook the bird and they’d eat the bird and be able to carry on just a little longer.

But she needed to think strategically.  The bird was alive.  It was alive, which meant it had to eat and drink water, which meant there was somewhere to get food and water nearby.

Unless the bird was a hallucination, brought forth by her dehydrated and starving brain.  Or maybe it had mutated during Praimfaya to not need food or water and to eat sand instead.

She followed it.

“We’re following the bird,” she said, as loudly as she could.  It wasn’t very loud, and she didn’t get a response.  She hoped Murphy and Seph hadn’t died in the back, but her brain was focused on the bird and she couldn’t stop to check and risk losing it.

So she drove.

She followed the bird for years and only minutes, until she crested a dune and could see it.

Green.

So much green.

The bird landed on a branch at the edge of the green which, upon closer inspection, was an entire forest.  She pulled the rover to a stop nearby, and opened the glove compartment.

Maybe it was the green, or maybe it was that her brain knew the only way for it to survive was to get her hand to stop shaking, but whatever the reason, she managed to hit the bird on the first shot.  She picked it up, before the blood could pick up too much sand, and sat it up on the passenger seat, patting its head.

“Yu gonplei ste odon,” she told it, then started driving again.

She wove through trees.  It was different, a part of her pointed out, driving when there were things she could hit.  She didn’t hit any of them, and rolled down the window so she could listen to the sounds of the forest.

Maybe it was a hallucination.  Maybe all of this was a hallucination, and she’d shot a rock and stuck it on the passenger seat and was still driving around through sand.  Maybe none of this was real and they were going to die anyway.

She heard the sound of water, and turned the rover in that direction.  It took too long and barely any time to reach a river, and she had barely put the rover in park before she was tripping out the door and stumbling down to the bank.

The water tasted better than anything she’d ever had, and she wasn’t even going to complain if it was a hallucination and she was really just shoving sand down her throat.

She’d found water, and they had a bird, and everything was green.

Either she was hallucinating and they were all going to die, or she’d found somewhere safe.

Somewhere they could survive.

*********

Murphy’s eyes opened, and he stared at the blurry figure that was calling his name.  It took a few moments before she came into focus.

“Emori?” he asked, his voice a raw whisper.  His mouth was so dry.  “You’re here?”

“I need you to drink this, okay?” Emori said, holding something out.  She sounded different, but Murphy couldn’t put his finger on why.

“I’m sorry,” he told her, ignoring whatever she was holding.  He tried to lift his hand, to touch her, but his arm wouldn’t cooperate.  “I’m sorry I couldn’t save you.”

Emori stared at him for a moment before shaking her head.  “It’s okay,” she said.  “I need you to—”

“It’s not okay.”  He cut her off, turning his head away from the container she was holding to him.  “It’s not.  I should have been better.  I should have been able to save you.”

Emori sighed.  “It’s okay,” she said again.  “I forgive you.”

He watched her face for a moment, searching for any sign that she was lying to him.  “You do?”

“Yes.”  She pushed the container back into his vision.  “Now I need you to drink this.”

He shook his head.  “I’m not thirsty,” he told her, his eyes falling shut.  “I’m so tired, Emori.  I just need to take a nap.”

“No.”  His eyes opened again as she shook his shoulder.  “No, Murphy.  I need you to drink this first, okay?”

“Murphy?” he repeated, his eyelids drifting shut.  “You never call me that.”

“John.”  He looked at her, he tried so hard to look at her but he was just so tired.  “John, please.  Take a drink.”

He shook his head again, watching her closely.  He hadn’t seen Emori in so long, too long, but it didn’t matter.

“I love you,” he whispered, and she squeezed his hand.

“I know, John,” she whispered back.  He would have laughed at the Star Wars reference if he hadn’t been so tired.  She pushed the container closer to him again.  “I need you to drink this.”

“Say it back,” he pleaded, turning his head away from the container.  He needed her to say it.  He needed to hear that she still loved him even though he couldn’t save her.  “Please, Emori.  Please say it back.”

She watched him for a moment.  “I love you, John,” she whispered, pressing a kiss to his forehead.  He smiled to himself, his eyes drooping closed again.  “I need you to drink this.”

She sounded desperate.  He couldn’t tell why.  He wasn’t thirsty.  He blinked up at her, at the worried look in her eyes.

“Kiss me?” he asked, the words barely there.

Emori sighed, pushed his hair out of his eyes.  “Drink this first,” she bargained, and Murphy finally let her bring the container to his lips.  He wasn’t thirsty, but apparently that wasn’t an option.

He coughed and spluttered as the water ran down his throat, burning its way down to his stomach.  He turned away from her and immediately puked it back up.  They repeated it over and over, Emori rubbing his shoulders and telling him just a little more, one more try, for her, until the water finally managed to stay down.

He was laying against a tree, he realized, and he was panting when they’d finished.

“Emori,” he whispered, her name rasping out from his lips.  She was dragging her fingers through his hair, murmuring something about a bird she was going to cook, but stopped to listen to him.  His eyelids were so heavy, he could barely keep them open, but he made himself look at her.

“Kiss me?” he asked again, and Emori hesitated for only a second before pressing their lips together.

It was quick and chaste, and Murphy would have turned it into more if his body wasn’t so heavy, if he wasn’t already falling back to sleep.

“Don’t leave me,” he pleaded, clutching her hands with all the meager strength he could muster.  “Don’t leave me.”

She might have told him that she wouldn’t, that she never would, but he was asleep far too quickly to tell for sure.

* * *

 _And if your heart wears thin,_ _I will hold you up_  
_And I will hide you w_ _hen it gets too much_  
_I'll be right beside you_  
_Nobody will break you_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I promise all this suffering will be worth it for the next chapter. Which should be up next week, unless something drastic happens.
> 
> Comments let me know exactly how much you want to kill me and eat me and kudos let you hallucinate your lost loved ones.
> 
> Next chapter's song is Home by Phillip Phillips 
> 
> Come freak at me on tumblr at probably-voldemort


	10. i'm gonna make this place your home

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm glad to see you all survived the last chapter and didn't decide to abandon me. I am having a killer time on reading break with my dogs and my fam and going to the dentist and all that other fun stuff you do when you're home from uni. I had to get some fillings this morning though which is dumb but like my face is half frozen right now which is kinda fun.
> 
> Welcome to the calm after (between???) the storm. This chapter is relatively angst free for your convenience, so you're welcome for that.
> 
> Please just assume that anything Clarke and Murphy have they either packed in the rover when they left the lab or found at the mystery location that will be revealed later in this chapter.
> 
> Also sorry for the relative lack of space crew in this chapter. I didn't really have anything planned in my outline for them this chapter and wanted to add more but then it was like midnight last night and I was just finishing the chapter and I wanted to get it up today so more space crew just didn't happen.
> 
> Please enjoy :)

_Hold on to me as we go_  
_As we roll down this unfamiliar road_  
_And although this wave, wave is stringing us along_  
_Just know you're not along_  
_Cause I'm gonna make this place your home_

* * *

**465 APF**

Murphy woke up slowly.  Everything hurt, but somehow he wasn’t hungry.

He groaned as he pushed himself up into a seated position, scanning around them.  They were in…a forest?  That made no sense.  Forests didn’t exist anymore.  Nothing existed but sand.  He was probably just dead.

“John?”

His head turned at the sound, and he watched Clarke cross the little clearing they were in and sit down next to him.  No.  This wasn’t fair.  If he was dead and Clarke was here, that meant she was dead too.

“Are we dead?” he asked, like Clarke had any authority on the matter.

She shook her head.  “No,” she said, smiling at him.  “We’re not dead.  We made it.”

He nodded, leaning over to rest his head on her shoulder.  “That’s good.”

He sat there listening for a few minutes while Clarke told him about the berries she’d found and the rabbit she’d caught and skinned and was currently roasting over a fire, about how good it would taste when they ate it for dinner.

“I’m going to check on…the baby,” Clarke said after a while, standing up.

Murphy’s brows drew together as he watched her head back across the clearing.  She’d hesitated.  Why had she hesitated?  It made no sense.  There was literally no reason to hesitate.

She was back with Seph in her arms before he could think about it too much, and then he was pulling the baby from her arms into his.

“Hey, kid,” he cooed, brushing his fingers over her face.  Seph didn’t say anything, just stared up at him with her big blue eyes and grabbed onto his fingers.

Clarke offered him a smile, bumping their shoulders together.  “John,” she started, and his gaze flicked to her.

“Why did you call me that?” he asked, frowning.

Her own smile dropped.  “What?”

“John,” he repeated, lips curling like the bad taste that came with the name in his mouth, the memories surrounding the only three people who’d ever called him that.  “You never call me that.”

“You told me to,” Clarke said.  A look he couldn’t decipher crossed her face.  “Who do you think I am?”

“Clarke?”  His frown deepened.  “Are you not Clarke?”

Clarke stared at him for a moment longer, and then she was giving him a watery grin as tears ran down her face.

“What am I not getting?” he asked, patting her back when she wrapped his arms around her.

“You’ve been hallucinating,” she told him, whispering the words against his neck.  “But you’re not anymore.  That’s good.  That’s a good thing.”

Seph wiggled between them, and Murphy held Clarke tighter.

“Who did I think you…” He trailed off, the hazy memories of this forest coming back.  “Emori.”

He felt her nod against him, and then she pulled back, offering him a sad smile.

“I’m sorry,” she said.  “I had to go with it or you wouldn’t drink or eat.”

He nodded, trying to match her smile with one of his own.  “It’s okay,” he told her, though it really was more than that.

His memories of hallucination Emori were fuzzy, as were his memories of, well, most things since they’d started running out of water.  He did, though, remember her forgiving him, telling him she didn’t blame him for not being able to save her.  He remembered being able to hold her again, one last time.

Maybe hallucinating his dead girlfriend wasn’t the most healthy way to start moving on, to start trying to forgive himself and get past her death, and, yeah, Clarke didn’t have any authority to forgive him on Emori’s behalf, but for the first time in over a year he could think about her and not feel like his entire soul was being crushed.  It still hurt, of course, but it was a manageable hurt, not an all consuming one.

It definitely wasn’t the best way to go about it, but he was going to embrace it.  As much as it hurt, the thought of trying to get over Emori and Max’s deaths, he knew he had to.  He knew he couldn’t keep wallowing in the misery he felt.  It wasn’t healthy.  It wasn’t what Emori would’ve wanted.

He didn’t blame Clarke for going along with his hallucinations, not even a little bit.  She did what she had to do, and it might’ve helped even more than she realized.

Murphy watched Seph squirm in his lap for a moment, thinking about what little else he remembered from the last few days.

“You kissed me,” he said, looking back up to grin at Clarke.  “Multiple times.”  He thought a little harder.  “With tongue.”

Clarke rolled her eyes, shoving him gently.  “The tongue was only once,” she pointed out.  “And it was just for a second because you were more lucid than I’d thought.”

Murphy laughed and bumped her arm back.  “We could make it happen again,” he suggested, wiggling his eyebrows, and Clarke shoved him again.

“Glad you’re feeling better,” she told him, her smile genuine even as she rolled her eyes.  She pushed to her feet.  “I’m gonna check on the rabbit.”

Murphy watched her walk away, then turned back to Seph, grinning down at the baby.

They were alive.

They were alive and they were going to be okay.

*********

Bellamy hoped that Clarke’s messages were right, that they were really safe and alive and going to stay that way.

He’d all but gone mad the day before, when Clarke’s only message was _“It’s a bird,”_ before a stretch of radio silence that was way too long to be good for his health.  The next message wasn’t any less stressful, Clarke rambling on about green and water and birds and hallucinations and maybe it’s all just sand.

It wasn’t until hours later, after apparently drinking as much water as she could keep down and eating so much bird she puked, when Clarke started sobbing into the radio, that Bellamy started to think that maybe they were actually safe.

None of them had gotten any sleep the night before, and neither had Clarke.  She’d woken Seph and Murphy every hour or so, coaxed them into drinking more water and eating more of the bird’s meat, and kept Bellamy and the others updated.  Seph was staying awake longer and longer, but was still remaining silent.  Murphy was hallucinating, thought she was Emori, but still seemed to be getting better.

They were getting better.

They had a forest and a river and animals and they were getting better and they were going to _survive_.

The latest message had come in not long ago, when Bellamy was laying in bed staring up at the ceiling.  Murphy had stopped hallucinating.

That’s all there was, that and Clarke admitting she was tired, so tired, and was going to go to sleep.

Bellamy should really follow her lead.  It’d been far too long since he’d gotten a decent night’s rest.  He really should sleep.

But every time he closed his eyes, he saw Clarke and Seph and Murphy, starving or burning or otherwise dying.  Because of him.  Because he’d made the call to leave them behind.

So he picked a file at random on his tablet and lay in the dark, letting Clarke’s voice wash over him.

 

**468 APF**

Murphy was sitting on a log and skinning a rabbit.  Clarke had been helping, but then Seph had shit herself so hard they were pretty sure it could be smelled from space, so now she was dealing with that.

“You are disgusting, Doctor-Persephone,” she told her daughter as she finished changing her diaper, and Seph giggled, clapping her hands together.

Clarke gasped.  She stared at Seph for a moment, then glanced up at Murphy.  He was staring back at them, the knife and half-skinned rabbit in the dirt by his feet and a smile spreading across his face.

She looked back at her daughter, still giggling away.

“You’re laughing,” she whispered, grinning.

Seph’s laughter cut off, and she started babbling at a wild place, like she’d been holding in her words since she’d gotten too hungry to speak and they were all spilling out now.

“Really?” Clarke asked, masking her face in fake shock as Seph paused briefly before going off again.  She picked her up, holding her out in front of her as she crossed the clearing to help Murphy prepare their dinner, sinking down on the log beside him.

“You’re talking again?”  Murphy reached out, tickling Seph under her chin and sending her into another fit of giggles.

She held out her arms to him.  “Papa!”

Clarke tensed as Murphy took her daughter, waiting for the moment he realized what Seph had said.

It took barely a second before he froze, staring down at Seph, the baby babbling away again.

“What did you call me?” he asked her, and Seph paused.

“Papa,” she said again, the name turning into another string of babble.

“No,” Murphy said, shaking his head.  “I’m Murphy, remember?  Moph?”

“Papa!”

Murphy stared at her a bit longer before turning to Clarke.  “Why is she calling me that?”

Clarke couldn’t meet his eyes, bending down to pick up one of the rabbits and wiping the dirt off the knife on her pants so she’d have something to do with her hands.

“When you were out of it,” she started, slowly, picking her words carefully as she started skinning the rabbit, “you thought she was Max.”

“What?”

She wasn’t looking at him, couldn’t tell what he was feeling or thinking, and swallowed heavily.

“When you were hallucinating, you thought I was Emori.”  She looked up at him.  “And you thought she was Max.  You kept referring to yourself as her papa, so I guess it stuck.”

“Oh.”  Murphy nodded, not meeting her eyes.  His fingers traced absently over Seph’s face as she babbled on, and Clarke couldn’t tell what he was thinking.

“You know.”  She tried to casually run the knife over the rabbit and ended up getting it stuck in its chest.  “If you want her to call you that, she should.”

Murphy’s gaze snapped to hers.  “What?”

Fuck.  Why had she just said that?  She’d had a plan.  She’d made a script.  She was going to go about this gracefully, not just blurt out the words like an idiot.

She took a deep breath.  No time for regrets.  This was how it was happening now, so she’d just have to go with it.

“If you want to be her papa, you should be,” she said again, shrugging like it wasn’t a big deal.  Like asking your friend-slash-co-parent if they wanted an official parent name from your daughter was something she did every day.  “I mean, you already are, really.  If you want her to call you that, she should.  If you want to.  You don’t have to if you don’t want to.  I’m not going to force you to—”

“You’d be okay with that?”

At first, Clarke was just glad that Murphy had cut off her mess of rambling.  Then she registered his actual words, and paused as she took in the emotions flashing across his face.  She couldn’t quite read them all, but most seemed to be positive.

“Of course I’d be okay with that, Murphy,” she told him, offering him a smile.  “You’re as much her parent as me or Bellamy at this point.”

She watched the corners of his mouth twitch, like he wanted to smile but couldn’t quite let himself believe this was actually happening.

“What about Bellamy?” he asked, not looking at her again.  Seph had stopped babbling, grabbing his finger and sucking on it instead.

Clarke sighed.  “He’s not here,” she reminded him, not that she thought Bellamy would have any problems with this.  “If he has any issues, he can take them up with me when he gets back.  But Seph’s got three parents whether he likes it or not.”

Murphy didn’t say anything for long enough that Clarke started to regret bringing it up.  She was working on how to take it back without making it seem like she was taking it back when he finally moved.

She froze in shock for a moment before dropping the rabbit and hugging him back, holding him close as he buried his face in her neck.  She was pretty sure this was a good reaction, at least.

He pulled back when Seph started to loudly protest being trapped between them.  He shifted his grip on her, holding her up in front of his face.

“You hear that, Seph?” he asked, grinning at her.  Clarke would later pretend she didn’t see the tears in his eyes.  “You were right.  I am your papa.”

Seph grabbed his nose and opened her mouth—and projectile vomited down his shirt.

Clarke laughed, picking the rabbit and the knife back up.  “Your turn, Papa,” she said, bumping her shoulder against his.

Murphy grumbled and rolled his eyes, but he was still smiling as he walked away to clean them both up.

 

**472 APF**

“Are we there yet?” Murphy asked, his voice high as he wiggled Seph in front of his face.  Seph giggled and kicked her feet, and Clarke sighed from the passenger seat.

“We don’t even know where we’re going,” she pointed out, pausing as she maneuvered the rover around a particularly large rock.  “We won’t know we’re there until we’re there.”

“Yeah, Seph,” Murphy admonished, sitting the baby back on his lap and frowning at her.  “Stop bugging your mommy.  You know we’re not there yet.”

“Right,” Clarke agreed, laughing.  “Because Seph’s definitely the one who’s impatient here.”

Murphy shrugged and leaned over to change the song blaring through the rover’s speakers.

He really wasn’t that impatient.  The change of scenery was definitely nice, after spending a week in the little clearing by the river.  There was so much to see out the windows, too, so much more than just sand or the same walls off the lab, that he really didn’t care right now how long it took them to explore the green spot.

Bugging Clarke, though, had at some point become his top priority.  No one was dying.  They had a couple dead rabbits in the back of the rover to cook up once they stopped.  There was nothing better to do than pick the music, play with Seph, and goad Clarke into some sort of petty argument that neither of them would really be into.

All in all, things were pretty good.

He wasn’t expecting it to last, because every time he’d tried that had resulted in everything going to shit, but it was nice for now.

They’d left the clearing that morning, after packing everything back into the rover, and set an exploration course.  They didn’t have a goal in mind, were just going to see what was out there and hopefully find somewhere suitable to live, somewhere that would also fit Bellamy, Raven, Monty, Harper, and Echo, as well as everyone in the bunker, once the surface was safe for them again.

“Cause I’m a 90’s bitch,” he sang (yelled) along with the music, and Seph clapped for him.  He didn’t know why he hadn’t gotten a baby earlier.  They were really good for your self esteem.

“Don’t you think we should’ve seen something by now?” Clarke asked, turning down the volume.  “Like any sign that there was ever some sort of civilization around here?”

Murphy didn’t bother to protest.  He’d been wondering the same thing, and he only knew the chorus of this song anyway.

“Maybe nobody lived here,” he said, watching the trees pass by the rover.  “Maybe we’re gonna be the first people to ever live here.”

“Maybe,” Clarke agreed, and Murphy rolled down the window.

Seph squawked and stretched her arms down towards the floor.  Murphy leaned forward to pick up the dropped teddy bear.

“You don’t want to lose Troy Bolton,” he said, frowning at her as Seph sucked a leg into her mouth.  “We don’t have another one.”

Clarke snorted.  “I still can’t believe you named her teddy bear Troy Bolton,” she said.  “She’s supposed to name it herself.”

“Seph has taste,” Murphy pointed out.  “She knows Troy Bolton is the best name for her teddy bear, don’t you?”

Seph ignored him and Clarke laughed.

They spotted the roofs of the buildings first, some sort of worn down village that might’ve been less worn down before Praimfaya.

The first skeletons were outside the village, scattered in the trees and half torn apart.

They parked the rover in silence and piled out.  Seph squawked for Troy Bolton, and Murphy retrieved it for her from the seat.

Murphy found himself reaching for Clarke’s hand as they wandered through the village, the skeletons of those who’d once lived here all around them.  There were people in the streets and in chairs.  Some were holding each other, others huddled up in groups.

So many people.  Adults.  Children.  All long dead.

There was a baby, the bones wrapped in a blanket, in the lap of the remains of its mother.

They stood there, silently, in the middle of this town so literally filled with ghosts, just staring around them.

Murphy knew what Praimfaya had done.  He’d seen the acid rain and the radiation sickness before it had even arrived.  It’d helped kill Emori and Max.  He’d spent weeks keeping it from killing Clarke, too.  It’d turned everything to sand and buried the bunker under the remains of Polis.

He’d known what it’d done.  He’d known the terrible effects the apocalypse had had.

But he realized in this moment that he really hadn’t seen it.  He hadn’t seen hundreds of people die as the death wave came through.  He didn’t know whether anyone even survived long enough for the wave, whether they’d all died from radiation before it had a chance to hit.

He hadn’t seen this many bodies since he’d crawled back to the Dropship after Clarke had barbequed the Grounders.

They decided to stay in the village, for now at least.  Long enough to bury the dead and find anything that’d be useful.  Murphy couldn’t even think of staying here any longer.  He didn’t think he could ever look at any of the buildings and not see the bones of those who had once lived within them.  He could tell Clarke couldn’t either.

They climbed back into the rover when it got dark, curling up under their blankets.  Neither of them noticed the shifting in the bushes near the village, or the small figure that darted out and disappeared into one of the buildings.

 

**475 APF**

Monty had been acting weird for days.  Harper had asked him about it, and he’d brushed it off, said he was fine.  She didn’t quite believe him, and her mind had been jumping to different illnesses he could possibly have.  It wasn’t a secret that none of them had really thought to pack anything in the way of medical supplies other than some bandages.  They were woefully unprepared if anything happened to hit them.

But she wasn’t going to pry, and he’d tell her about whatever was bothering him when she wanted.

She was toweling off her hair after her shower when the radio crackled off in the middle of Clarke and Murphy’s terrible singing.

She was shocked, though, when the voice that interrupted was neither Clarke’s nor Murphy’s but instead Raven’s.

_“Harper McIntyre, please report to the observation window.  Harper McIntyre to the observation window.  Thank you.”_

She really shouldn’t’ve been shocked that the intercom apparently worked.  There really had never been reason to use it, and she wasn’t sure why there was reason to use it now.

She finished drying her hair and fluffed it with her hands as she left her room and walked through the halls.  The music hadn’t come back on, and she really didn’t think about it until Murphy’s voice came wailing out as she rounded the corner to the observation window.

_“Now I’ve had the time of my life and I owe it all to you.”_

She laughed at Raven’s song choice—it was particularly terribly sung but apparently Raven had been very into Dirty Dancing back when the Ark had had a modest selection of movies to choose from—and finished rounding the corner.

Only to freeze.

There was a small table set up with a white sheet for a table cloth.  Raven had been working on little fairy lights and had apparently finished because dozens were strung from the ceiling.  Monty himself was standing near the table, his hair slicked back and his hands twisting in front of him.

“Monty, what is this?” she asked, glancing around.

He offered her a smile when he saw her, stepping towards her and grabbing her hands.

“It’s about time we actually have a date,” he said, and Harper laughed.

“This is a lot of effort for a date,” she pointed out, letting him lead her to a chair.

Monty shrugged, taking his own seat.  “You’re worth it.”

“Sure,” Harper agreed, reaching for her spoon.  “Do we have fancy date algae, too?”

“Of course.”  Monty grinned at her.  “We have algae moonshine, too.”

“It must be a special occasion, then.”  Harper grinned back and dug into her algae, which, despite Monty’s claims, was just regular algae.

The date was nice, really nice, but Monty was still being weird.  He was picking at his algae, and hadn’t even touched the moonshine.  Murphy and Clarke kept singing the Dirty Dancing song over and over, and Harper wondered whether Monty had requested this song specifically or if this was just Raven’s idea of romantic music.

When Monty spilled his moonshine down himself, Harper decided she’d waited long enough.

“What’s going on?” she asked, watching him dab up the alcohol with the table cloth.

He paused, glancing up at her.  “What do you mean?”

“I mean you’ve been acting weird,” she said.  “What’s wrong?”

Monty shook his head.  “Nothing’s wrong.”

“Monty,” Harper sighed, but he shook his head again, standing up.

“Harper, nothing’s wrong,” he insisted, crossing the space between them and grabbing her hands.  “Harper, everything’s great.  You’re great.  We’re great.”

“Okay.”  Harper raised her eyebrows, trying to keep from laughing.  “How much moonshine have you drank?”

Monty smiled but ignored her question.  “We’re great,” he repeated.  “And I love you, Harper.  I love you so much.  I spent a stupidly long time writing a speech and now I can’t remember any of it except I love you.”

There was a tiny part of Harper’s brain that was trying to tell her what this was, but she pushed it back.

“I love you, too,” she said instead, and Monty grinned at her.

“You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me, and I want to spend my life with you,” he told her, and then he dropped one of his hands from hers to dig in his pocket and then he was kneeling and Harper’s brain was shutting down.  “Harper, will you—”

He was kneeling and there was a ring in his hand and Harper wasn’t thinking, couldn’t think, couldn’t let him finish before she was flying out of her seat and all but tackling him into a kiss.

“Yes,” she said, wrapping her arms around his neck.  “Yes!  Holy shit, yes!”

He laughed, kissing her back and then pushing her away.  “I never actually asked you anything,” he pointed out, and Harper rolled her eyes.

“Fine, dork,” she said.  “Ask me.”

Monty huffed, the grin on his face too big for him to really look annoyed.  “Maybe I don’t want to anymore.”

“Fine,” Harper agreed.  “I’ll ask you, then.  Monty, will you marry me?”

“Yes,” Monty said, and then they were kissing again.

At some point, the ring actually made its way onto her finger.  When she’d actually look at it later, she’d notice it was homemade, from some shiny green metal he must’ve found somewhere.  He’d point out that it was green because of his name, because of her name, too, if she wanted to take it when they got married, and she’d call him a dork and kiss him again.

But that was later, after they finally made it back to their room later that night.

Right now she was more than content to just kiss her fiancé on the floor by the observation window because Murphy’s voice warbling around them was right.  She was having the time of her life, and there was nowhere in the universe she’d rather be.

 

  **478 APF**

Clarke wiped the sweat off her forehead with the back of her arm, no doubt smearing dirt across her face.  They were done.  They’d searched every inch of this village, and had finally finished burying the last of the bones.

They were done.

She stabbed her shovel into the dirt and followed Murphy towards the little pen they’d built for Seph.  It was just high enough that she could see out of it if she chose to use the edge to help her stand, and was big enough that she could crawl around and play with Troy Bolton and the rest of her toys.  She’d be safe inside it and they wouldn’t have to worry about her crawling off.

She hefted out the baby and accepted the water bottle Murphy handed her.

“Papa,” Seph called, reaching her little hands out.

“Am I your favourite?” he asked, taking the baby into his own arms.  “You like me more than Mommy, don’t you?”

Clarke rolled her eyes, chugging down the water.  “If you’re her favourite, you can change her diaper,” she suggested, and Murphy sighed.

They sat down near the rover, snacking on berries and jerky after Murphy changed Seph’s diaper, and stared out at the village.

“Which direction should we go tomorrow?” Murphy asked, dangling a bit of jerky over Seph so she could grab at it.

Clarke shrugged.  “The map shows a lake that should be here,” she said.  “If it survived Praimfaya, that is.  I could really go for an actual bath.”

Murphy laughed.  “What?  The river isn’t good enough for you?”

“Shockingly, no.”  The river in question was one that ran by the village, and barely reached halfway up their shins.  It did its job, but that was about it.

“Lake it is,” Murphy declared.  He surrendered the jerky to Seph, who set about trying to eat it with her three teeth, and he lifted her in front of his face.  “Do you want Papa to teach you how to swim?”

“Does _Papa_ know how to swim?” Clarke questioned, and Murphy shrugged.

“Emori taught me,” he said, and Clarke nodded.  “Do you know how to swim?”

It was Clarke’s turn to shrug.  “I know how to not drown,” she said, and Murphy laughed.

“I guess Dr. Murphy’s switching from medicine to swimming,” he said, and Clarke rolled her eyes.

“Dr. Griffin thinks that’s a good idea,” she said.

Murphy turned Seph to face her, wiggling the baby until she giggled.  “Doctor-Persephone agrees.”

 

**479 APF**

It didn’t take them long to find the lake—it was apparently only barely a five minute drive from the village, probably no more than a ten or fifteen minute walk—and then they were stripping down and jumping in.  The water was cold, but it felt amazing, and Seph loved it possibly more than either of them.

They lay in the sun to dry off, finding animals and faces in the soft clouds that floated overhead.

It was nice, Clarke mused.  She couldn’t think of a single day on the ground that had been so blissfully happy.  There’d been a lot of those days, back in the lab, but none where she’d actually been outside in fresh air.

This was the Earth she’d longed for, up in space, the one she’d drawn on the walls of her prison cell and the pages of her sketchbook.  This was the Earth she was going to raise her daughter in.  Peace instead of war.  Deciding where to play instead of who dies.

The lake was perfect.  It was close enough to the village that there’d be houses for the people in the bunker when they got them out, and they could expand the village this way, but far enough that they didn’t have to look at the buildings there unless they wanted to, didn’t have to see the ghosts of the empty skeletons of the people who’d once lived there.

It was perfect.

After they’d dried, Seph took a nap and they drew up plans for a house.  It was large and elaborate and definitely not something their current skillset could handle, or something they could conceivably build before winter set in—whenever winter might set in in this post-apocalyptic world.

So they drew up plans for a second house.  This one was simpler, with a single room and a door and windows they could fasten up tight.  There was a separate little space attached for a fire, the design for that coming from a book they’d packed.

They could build this one, and then live in it instead of the rover until they built the other one.  It’d be small, but still bigger than the space they’d shared in the rover.

They’d build both houses by the edge of the forest, at the top of the hill overlooking the lake.  Murphy added a picket fence and flower beds to the big house, and Clarke smiled and added a swing to a tree.

This was where they were going to live.  This is where they’d spend the next 1347 days until it was safe for the bunker to open and everyone else to come back from space.  This is where they’d raise Seph, and where she’d spend the rest of her life.

They could do it.  They would do.

But they’d do it tomorrow.

For now, they lay back on the grass and watched Seph crawl through the wildflowers.

 

**480 APF**

“We’re just gonna be over there,” Murphy told Seph, balancing her on his hip and pointing over at the spot where they were planning to build the little house.  “We’re just gonna be there, and you’re gonna stay here with Troy Bolton, just like back at the village, okay?”

Seph made a sound that he took to mean agreement, and he placed her down in the pen.  She happily grabbed onto Troy Bolton and started eating him, so Murphy turned away to look for Clarke.  He could see her butt hanging out of the passenger side of the rover, and resisted the urge to make a crude joke.

“What are you doing?” he asked, picking up a hammer from their pile of supplies.

Clarke didn’t answer, just hopped out of the rover with a water bottle microphone and struck a pose as the first beats of a song rang out.

“We built this city,” she sang along with the music.  She switched poses as the key changed.  “We built this city on rock and roll—”

“—Built this city!” Murphy joined in, the hammer acting as his own microphone.  “We built this city on rock and roll!”

Clarke danced her way over to him, and Murphy picked up Seph again.

The house could wait until after their dance party.  It wasn’t going anywhere, and they weren’t even building it today.  They had to cut boards right now, and Murphy wasn’t sure how long that’d take.  It wasn’t particularly something he was looking forward to either way.

So he danced.  He danced with Clarke and their daughter on the site of their future home.  He danced in the sunshine, to the beat of Starship and the birds chirping around them.  He danced like they hadn’t just survived an apocalypse, like they didn’t have to figure out how they were going to dig out the bunker or how to let their friends in space know where they were.

Those were problems for later.  Right now, there weren’t any problems.  There was just building a city on rock and roll, and him and Clarke and the baby.

So he danced.

 

**489 APF**

Building houses in real life was not as easy as it looked in the movies.

In the movies, their house would’ve been built in a montage of short clips with We Built This City playing over it.  It would’ve shown them laughing and accidentally hitting their thumbs with a hammer and bandaging it up and a triumphant shot of them pushing up a wall and something cute with Seph, like her trying to hammer something together.

It would’ve been quick and adorable and then over.

The movies skipped over the days of sweating and cursing and how much it fucking hurt to actually hit your thumb with a hammer.  His nail turned fucking black and fell off.  It fucking fell off.

So, no, Murphy was not enjoying the process of building his and Clarke’s house, thank you very much.

At least they were almost finished and could stop sleeping in the rover in the next day or two.  Then they could take as long as they wanted to build their actual house.  Which, if Murphy had any say in it, would be a long fucking time.

He paused, dropping his hammer and lifting his shirt to wipe the sweat off his face.  Not that it did much.  It was more than soaked through at this point.  He sighed and pulled it off, tossing it aside, and picked his hammer up again.

“Five more minutes then break for lunch?” he called, and the banging on the other side of the house stopped.

“What?”

“Five more minutes and then lunch?”

“Sounds good!”

Murphy sighed loudly.  He’d been hoping Clarke would suggest they break now instead of waiting, but whatever.

He pushed his hair out of his face.  It was getting long.  He’d have to cut it soon.  Or maybe get Clarke to cut it.  He’d tried once himself and Clarke still hadn’t let him live it down.

“Hear that, Seph?” he yelled, digging in the bucket for some more nails.  “We’re gonna eat soon, okay?”

Seph didn’t answer, and he debated going to check on her.

“She’s probably napping,” Clarke called from the other side of the house, as if she could read his mind.  “She’s not ignoring you.”

Murphy rolled his eyes.  “Hahaha,” he said, punctuating each _ha_ with a bang to the latest of too many nails.

The five minutes passed relatively quickly for building time, and then Murphy was wiping the sweat off his face on the back of Clarke’s shirt.

“You’re disgusting,” she told him, shoving him away.

“Seph doesn’t think I’m disgusting,” he told her, crossing to Seph’s pen.  “Do you, Se—”

He broke off, his stomach dropping as he stared into the empty pen.  Troy Bolton was there, lying on his side on Seph’s blanket, as were the rest of Seph’s toys.

But Seph herself?  She was nowhere to be seen.

“Clarke?” he called, already turning away from the pen and scanning the clearing.

“What?”

“Clarke,” he repeated, and she looked up at the panic that seeped into his voice.  “Clarke, Seph’s gone.”

Where could she have gone?  She was a baby.  She couldn’t even walk yet.  Where the fuck could she have gone?

“What?!”

Clarke was beside him in a second, but Murphy hardly noticed, trying to find any sign of where their daughter might’ve been.

“She’s not there,” he told her, already starting towards the lake, a rock building up in his gut.  “Where the fuck is she?”

“What the fuck?  Seph!” Clarke yelled, sprinting past him.  “Seph, where are you?  Shit!”

“Seph!” he called, running after her.  “Seph!”

They made it to the lake, and Murphy prayed they wouldn’t find her, not there.  They called her name and searched the banks, and she wasn’t anywhere to be found.

Murphy was both relieved and terrified.

“Where is she?” Clarke whispered, her hand gripping his arm.  He just shook his head.

*********

Clarke was freaking out.  She was beyond freaking out.  She was terrified and she was panicking and she could not lose Seph.  They had to find her.  None of this made any sense.

They’d been searching for hours.  Hours.  For a baby who shouldn’t have been able to get out in the first place.

“She can’t even fucking walk, Murphy!” she snapped as they trudged through the forest.  “Where could she have gone?”

“I don’t know,” Murphy snapped back, pausing as he bent to sift through some bushes.  “This doesn’t make any fucking sense!  There’s no one else out here!”

“Well, something has to be out here.”  Clarke growled in frustration, tugging her hair into an angry ponytail.  “Babies don’t just fucking disappear!”

She knew, logically, that it wasn’t Murphy’s fault that Seph had disappeared, just like she knew that he knew that it wasn’t her fault, but it didn’t make a difference.  They were tired and hungry and frustrated and scared, and they still couldn’t fucking find their baby.

It was going to get dark soon.  The sky was already turning pink.  They had to find Seph before she had to spend the night all alone.

Clarke stopped, gripping the bark of a tree as she tried to calm her heart.  They were going to find her.  She was going to be okay.  They were going to find her.

“Clarke,” Murphy said, and she snapped her gaze to him.  He still wasn’t wearing a shirt, and his hair was slicked back with sweat, and he looked about as wrecked as she was.

His mouth was open like he was going to keep talking, like there was actually a reason he’d said her name, but instead he turned away slightly, tilting his head and staring past her into the forest.

“What?”

He glanced back at her briefly, before returning his gaze to the forest.  “Do you hear that?”

“Hear what?”  Clarke asked, but then she heard it.  It was far off in the distance, but it was clearly the cry of a baby.

She shared a look with Murphy and then they were sprinting off, jumping logs and dodging trees.  The cries got louder the further they went, and Murphy pulled ahead.

She crashed into his back and realized he’d stopped.  She opened her mouth to ask why when it hit her.  It sounded like the cries were coming from everywhere, all around them, and Clarke had no idea which way to go next.

“Where is she?” she asked, panting from the run.  Murphy shook his head, glancing around.

Clarke started panicking again.  They were so close.  They were so—

A large bush rustled, and Clarke and Murphy froze.  It was too big a rustle for a baby to make, but that was definitely where the cries were coming from now.

Clarke felt Murphy grab her hand, and she swallowed heavily.

The bush rustled harder, and a small child emerged from within.  They were tiny, maybe five or six years old, and covered in dirt.  If Clarke had been thinking about the child at all, she would’ve bet that they hadn’t had a bath since before Praimfaya.  Their face was streaked in mud, barely visible behind a large tangle of dark hair.

There was a kid.

And in the kid’s arms was Seph.

She was a little dirty and screaming her head off, but otherwise unharmed.

The kid stepped took a step towards them, staring up at them with wide eyes.

“Your baby is too loud.”

Their voice was stilted, hoarse, as if they hadn’t spoken in a while.

They leaned down to put Seph on the ground, and then they were gone as if they’d never been there at all.

Clarke and Murphy stayed frozen for a split second longer before rushing forward and dropping to the ground.  Clarke pulled her baby into her lap, her hands brushing over her to make sure that she was really there, that she was really all in one piece.

“You’re okay,” she whispered, tears leaking down her face as she tucked Seph against her chest.  Her daughter burrowed into her, tiny hands gripping her hair.  “Mommy’s got you.  You’re okay.”

Murphy was wrapped around them, murmuring similar things, and Clarke closed her eyes, letting the relief wash over her.

It wasn’t until later, when they were back home, curled up under their blankets and around each other in the rover, Seph safe and sound tucked in between them, that Clarke really thought about the kid.

“Murphy,” she whispered, meeting his eyes in the dark.  “Murphy, a kid took Seph.”

He reached out, squeezing her hand.  “I know.”

“No.”  Clarke shook her head.  “No.  _A kid_ took her, Murphy.  A kid.  There is a kid out there.”

“Shit,” Murphy mumbled, and Clarke had to agree.

There were only two options here.  The first was that there were people out there.  People in this green space where they’d finally found peace.  People who could take that away from them at any minute.

The other was that this kid was all alone.  This kid was alone and had been for 490 days.  Their family were the bodies that they’d buried, and they’d watched them die, and then had been completely, entirely alone.

Clarke wasn’t sure which was worse to think about.

 

**490 APF**

Bellamy was washing the breakfast dishes with Harper, idly discussing whether it was more likely that Clarke and Murphy would kill each other on purpose or accidentally before they managed to finish building their house, when the radio crackled to life.

_“We lost Seph yesterday.  She just disappeared.  We found her and she’s okay, but we were so terrified, Bell.”_

Bellamy froze, his hands buried in the lukewarm water, and his heart stopped.

 _They’d found her,_ he told himself.  Seph was lost, somehow, but they found her and she’s okay.  That’s all that mattered.

He forced down the irrational anger, that they’d managed to lose his daughter.  Clarke and Murphy loved Seph.  They wouldn’t let anything happen to her on purpose.  There was obviously a reason she’d managed to disappear.

_“She was kidnapped.”_

That did nothing to stifle his fear, nor did Harper’s muttered “Holy shit.”  Seph had been kidnapped.  His daughter had been kidnapped.  She wasn’t even a year old, and she’d been fucking kidnapped.

 _“It was a little kid, Bellamy.  A little kid took her.  A_ kid _, Bellamy.”_

He barely registered her words, still caught up in the fact that Seph had been kidnapped and how much more terror Clarke and Murphy must’ve been in when they didn’t know where she was.

Her next words, though, more than registered.  Monty would later tell him that she’d said the same thing years ago, in different circumstances.  The words then had been full of horror.  Now, there was some leftover panic, but they were mostly full of awe.

_“We’re not alone.”_

 

* * *

  _Settle down, it'll all be clear_  
_Don't pay no mind to the demons_  
_They fill you with fear_  
_The trouble—it might drag you down_  
_If you get lost, you can always be found_  
_Just know you're not alone_  
_I'm gonna make this place your home_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Who could that random dirty baby stealing child be? Could it be that Madi has finally made her appearance?
> 
> Thanks for reading!
> 
> Comments protect my teeth from more cavities and kudos make the freezing come out of my face.
> 
> Come follow me on tumblr at probably-voldemort :)
> 
> **EDIT (Mar 4): Uni's being a butt and I've not had a ton of time to write, so the next chapter will come once I have more time to actually get it written**
> 
>  
> 
> **EDIT (Mar 30): Uni is finally not being a butt anymore (but finals are coming up yay) so hoping to get the next chapter up soon! If you want to be helpful and speed it up, though, leaving a comment of something you'd like to see in the next chapter here or in my askbox on tumblr would be super helpful :)**


	11. on rooftops under blue skies

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kay guys we're gonna start this off with a shout out to the chick in my psych class who was sitting in front of me and reading this on her laptop a couple weeks ago. You go girl. In other words, one of y'all are in my psych class so like do with that what you will.
> 
> I know this is real late. I definitely did not mean for there to be this long between updates. Uni's been hell and I've had massive writer's block in getting started on this chapter. I think it's cause there's some things a couple chapters from now that I really want to write and share with you but I can't do that until I get there but like whatever the reason, it's here now.
> 
> Also some shows y'all should be watching if you aren't: The Umbrella Academy, The Magicians, The Order. All fantastic. All things you should defs watch.
> 
> And have y'all seen that trailer? I am freaking stoked guys. This fic will not be travelling to other planets btw because like that would probably make it like 100 chapters long and we don't have that kind of time folks. There'll be a different ending than we got with the show. That's just how it is sometimes.
> 
> I have NOT seen the spoilers, and I don't want to see the spoilers, so please don't tell me them.
> 
> But that trailer! What the heck! In the words of my wise baby sister "If they kill Murphy this season, I'm gonna riot."
> 
> This chapter's song is Bring It On Home by American Authors, which is my jam right now and y'all should go listen to it if you haven't already. Or even if you have already. It's great.
> 
> Next chapter probably won't come till late April after I'm finished with finals but I'll try to get it to you as soon as possible.
> 
> ALSO!! I have a mood board for the fic now on Tumblr! So definitely go check out my Tumblr and do with that what you will (I tag this fic as _#darling hold me in your arms_ so you can search that and it should probably pop up, or like if you're reading this within like a week of me posting this chapter it's probably somewhere close to the top of my blog anyway so like no need to go searching)
> 
> Enjoy!

_I've run the highest wire_  
_I've laughed, smiled, cried, and been called a liar_  
_I thought to myself win, lose, or fail_  
_I won't let this train derail_  
_And when I find myself, I'ma bring it on home_

* * *

 

**493 APF**

They hadn’t seen The Kid since they’d taken Seph four days ago.  Well, they’d seen glimpses of them, as The Kid had clearly been watching them for some time and continued to do so from the treeline, darting away as soon as they realized they were caught.

Since they’d realized there was a kid running around, they’d come to two conclusions:

  1. They were now the proud parents of two children, and
  2. They had no idea how you were supposed to go about adopting the feral child that lived in the woods and kidnapped your baby that one time.



So far their plan was to go about life as normal and wait for The Kid to approach them—hopefully not to kidnap Seph again—but as they had yet to emerge from the forest, that plan hadn’t yielded any promising results.

They’d noticed The Kid hiding in the trees about an hour ago, and had been careful not to look in that direction as they worked on the house.

“What do you think they’re doing?” Murphy asked, careful to keep his voice low.

Clarke shrugged.  “They probably haven’t seen another person since Praimfaya,” she pointed out.  “And they’re so young, I wouldn’t be surprised if they didn’t even remember being around other people.”

Murphy nodded but didn’t say anything, and Clarke focused on making sure the shutter she’d just nailed up was level.

She took a few steps back, placing her hands on her hips and staring at their house.

“We’re done,” she said, turning to grin at Murphy.  “It’s finally finished.”

“Finally,” Murphy groaned, throwing his arms up to stretch out his back.  “I am not doing that again.”

Clarke rolled her eyes, walking around to the front of the little house.  “Hate to break it to you, but we’re not living in this little thing for the rest of our lives,” she pointed out.

“I can dream.”  Murphy waved her off, passing her to pull Seph out of her pen.

“Hi!” Seph yelled, waving her fists.

“Hi, kid,” Murphy cooed, coming back to stand with Clarke, the baby now settled on his hip.  “Wanna see our new house?”

“Hi!” Seph yelled again, then spit in Murphy’s eye.

Murphy grumbled under his breath as he wiped off the spit, and Clarke snorted.  She put her hands on her hips as she surveyed their work, their new home, and smiled.

It was small.  It was definitely going to feel cramped while they were stuck in there over the winter.  The roof was a bit off kilter, one side slanting more steeply than the other, and they still had to figure out how to make a door that would actually keep out the elements and keep in the heat.

But it was done.  They’d built a fucking house, all on their own.  It wasn’t perfect, but it was something they’d made, and fuck she was proud of it.

“We built a fucking house,” she said, turning to grin at Murphy.

He returned her grin.  “We built a fucking house.”

“Fuck!”

They turned to stare at Seph, cuddled into Murphy’s chest with one fist gripping tightly to his hair.

“Seph,” Murphy gasped, raising his free hand to press against his chest, scandalized.  “Watch your fucking language, kid.”

*********

 

They’d spent the rest of the day moving their blankets and pillows and everything else they slept with from the rover to the house, and watching The Kid creep along the edge of the woods. 

That was what they were doing now, watching them out of the corner of their eye as they ate dinner on the table they’d built—which had come out pretty flat surfaced and stable, surprising them both.  Clarke was feeding Seph bits of meat between her own bites of dinner, and there was an extra plate of food at the far end of the table.

They’d been leaving food for The Kid for as long as they’d known they existed.  The Kid had yet to actually join them for dinner, but the plate would disappear at some point every evening and then reappear a while later.  Murphy hoped it wouldn’t be too much longer before The Kid started just joining them for food, but baby steps were apparently required when trying to get the kid you found in the woods to join your family.

“So we need to figure out where we’re putting it,” Clarke said, and Murphy turned his attention back to her.

She said it like they’d been having a conversation, instead of just sitting there eating in silence and wondering what The Kid was doing, like he’d have any idea what she was referring to.

“What?”

Clarke gestured at the plans for the big house that were spread out on the table, not quite far enough away for Seph to avoid getting food on them.

“The extra room,” she said, like it should’ve been obvious.  “I mean, if The Kid is living with us, they’re gonna want a bedroom, right?”

“Oh.”  Murphy reached over, turning the sketch so he could see it better.  “Yeah.  That’s definitely something we need to do.”

“We also need to figure out whether we’re starting that before or after winter,” Clarke added, and Murphy knew she was right, even if he groaned at the thought of building something else.

“Is there even still winter?” he asked, and Clarke shrugged.

“The Kid would know,” she pointed out, glancing back at the woods.  Murphy took another bite of food instead of pointing out that, whether The Kid knew or not, they hadn’t said anything to them since returning Seph, so he doubted they’d be much help.  “But seriously.  The little house was going to be crowded enough with the three of us stuck in there for however long winter lasts.  Adding a five year old?”

“Right,” Murphy agreed.  He hadn’t spent much time around small children since he was one himself, but he knew enough to know that having one trapped in a tiny one room house for what could be months was probably a disaster in the making.  “That’s a thing.”

He shoveled another bite of dinner into his mouth, and they kept talking.  They decided to wait on deciding whether they were building the big house now or in the spring until they actually had an idea of how long they had until winter started.  Which meant talking to The Kid, but that was a problem to be addressed later.  They picked a spot on the house to add another bedroom, and Murphy doodled a family of stick figures out front as Clarke sketched it onto the blueprints.

They decided to wait until spring before starting to dig out the bunker.  It was something they knew needed to be done before the others could even hope to get to the surface, something that was going to take so much time and effort that Murphy was exhausted just thinking about it, but right now they had more important things to deal with.

Like gathering food before winter started.  That was their top priority, now that the little house was built.  They could survive winter in one room with two small children, but they couldn’t survive winter without food.  Neither of them mentioned the starvation they’d already faced once, but Murphy knew neither of them wanted to go through that ever again.

Seph was asleep by the time they finished, and would probably be out for the night.  It wasn’t a two person job putting her to bed, but it did give The Kid a chance to come get their dinner.

Clarke tucked Seph into the bed they’d made her, brushing her hair back from her face, and Murphy changed out of his clothes into his pyjamas.  They wouldn’t go to bed themselves for a few hours still, but the comfort of the soft cloth of their pyjamas made him feel safe outside in a way he’d never felt at the Dropship or any of the months before Praimfaya, really.  If he could be outside in his pyjamas, guns locked safely in the rover, nothing was going to attack.

He figured Clarke felt similarly, since pyjamas by the fire at night had been their tradition every night since they’d reached safety.

He flopped onto the bed when he was finished, staring up at the ceiling as Clarke changed into her own pyjamas.  Modesty wasn’t really a thing they’d had since even before she’d birthed out a baby into his arms, before they’d spent weeks trapped in the tiny space of the rover together, but sometimes something would tell him it was weird, being in the same room while they changed, so he’d look away and wait for her to be done.

“I think they took it.”

He glanced up at Clarke, fully dressed in fuzzy purple pyjamas with sheep patterned across them, staring out the window.

“The plate’s gone,” Clarke elaborated, like Murphy would have no idea what she was talking about.

“Okay,” he said, pushing to his feet and following her back to the fire.

It was a clear night, the stars shining above them, and Murphy tried to pick out the Ark as Clarke held the radio to her lips, telling the abys about how they finally finished the house.

They couldn’t hear her.  He knew that.  No one was listening, not on the Ark, not anywhere.  If they could hear, Raven and Monty would’ve figured out some way to answer.

The radio didn’t work.

But he wasn’t going to stop her.  If he’d had even the smallest hope that Emori could hear him, somehow, that he could talk to her again, he’d be spilling his guts to her every night too.

There were so many things he’d call Clarke on, so many times he’d tell her something bullshit, but he wasn’t going to take this from her.  He couldn’t take away her hope.

He chimed in a few times where his comments were needed, and then the radio was away and Clarke had crossed to the speaker to turn on some music before curling up against his side.

It was nice, this little piece of paradise they’d found.  He had Clarke and their daughter and their house and another kid who was probably watching them right now from the shadows.  After all the hell they’d been through, this was really nice.

He wasn’t about to start thinking that everything was peaceful and sunshine and rainbows, because every time he did that, it all went to shit.  But right now?  He could safely say he didn’t hate being alive.

The song changed to Super Trouper, a song that had choreography built in, and Murphy pretended to complain as Clarke pulled him to his feet.

“Seph needs to grow up soon,” he said, striking a pose with an invisible microphone.  “This one has three people.”

Clarke rolled her eyes.  “Seph does not need to grow up soon,” she said, jumping into the next move.  “Seph is going to stay a baby forever.  We could teach The Kid the dance though.”

Murphy laughed, and then they were singing and dancing too hard for him to point out that he didn’t want Seph to grow up ever, either.  He could do with her growing up enough to be potty trained, but he’d be fine with her stopping after that.  Babies became kids and then kids became teenagers and teenagers lit things on fire or committed treason, and he didn’t need that kind of stress in his life.

Super Trouper finished and turned into another song that didn’t have choreography, but Murphy wasn’t done dancing.  He grabbed Clarke’s hand, twirling her around and grinning as she giggled.

Murphy had never claimed to be good at dancing, mostly because no one had ever asked.  Clarke, however, had claimed to be amazing, even when they were kids.

Their abilities were about on par, which meant that the difference between them was that Murphy had never lied about how well he could dance, while Clarke had lied her ass off.

Unless they had choreography they’d carefully practiced over hours of rewatching movies, they were shit.

Murphy was more than okay with that.

“You look like a worm,” he told her, laughing as he imitated her dance.  If it could even be called that.  She was mostly just standing there wiggling.

“Fuck off,” she shot back, but she was also laughing and switched into something that more resembled a flightless bird trying to communicate with a beached dolphin, and there was no way Murphy couldn’t imitate that, too.

All things considered, he had a pretty great life right now.  He wasn’t going to let anything mess that up.

“What are you doing?”

Murphy froze, and Clarke toppled into him as she stopped dancing, too, and they turned to stare at the source of the voice.

It was The Kid, somehow so much smaller than he remembered, dirty and grimy and sending off hardcore judging vibes from where they were standing near the edge of the fire’s light.

“We’re dancing.”  It was Clarke who spoke, who got over her shock that The Kid was here, where they could see them, actually talking to them.

The Kid raised an eyebrow, one side of their mouth twitching up like they were trying not to laugh.

“No, you’re not,” they said, dropping the plate that their dinner had been on in the grass as they crossed their arms.  “That’s not dancing.”

Of course.  Of course their feral child they found in the woods was snarky and judgey.  Of course.  They were joining the Griffin-Murphy family, after all.  Being an asshole was in their DNA, related or not.

And, because Murphy was not only an asshole but a father, and being a father meant being as embarrassing as possible, he grinned, starting in on the worst dance moves he could think of.

“Are you sure?” he asked, doing a very bad rendition of the moonwalk while swinging his arms in a windmill pattern.  “I’m pretty sure this is dancing, kid.”

The Kid watched, eyes wide, and Clarke laughed and started up her bird-dolphin dance again.  The Kid was gone before the song ended, clearly too embarrassed to be associated with them even when there was no one else around.

“Do you think we scared them off?” Clarke asked, grabbing his hand to twirl him.

Murphy shook his head.  “They’ll be back.”

*********

Madi had been watching the people since they showed up in her village in their weird horse.  There were three of them, the woman, the man, and the baby, and they were all really dumb.

Maybe the baby was smart, but it was still a baby and babies didn’t even know how to talk, so it wasn’t smart yet.

First they put all the bodies from her village in the ground.  That was okay, because Madi didn’t really like to look at the bodies.  But they also put her mom in the ground, and even though her mom was a skeleton, she still missed her.

Then they rode their weird horse to the lake.

They built a house, which was not dumb because they’d been living in their horse’s stomach which was weird and gross, but was also dumb because there were already houses.

They couldn’t fish.  They were so loud in the forest that Madi was surprised they ever managed to kill anything.  They didn’t know how to do anything at all except build houses which didn’t even count because there were already houses.  They didn’t even know how to dance right.

They kept the baby in a cage, like it was an animal and they were going to eat it.  Madi had tried to save the baby once, but it’d screamed so loud and didn’t want to eat any of the food Madi gave it so she’d given it back.

She didn’t think they were going to eat the baby anymore, but she still didn’t know why they locked it in a cage.

The people were dumb, and Madi didn’t know how they weren’t dead yet.

But now they left extra food on the table after they finished eating dinner.  At first, Madi thought they were just being dumb and leaving their food out where the bears would get it.

But then they kept doing it, over and over, and at some point she realized they were leaving it out just for her.

Which was also dumb.  She knew how to make food.  She had lots of food.

But their food tasted really good, and if she didn’t eat it, the bears would just eat it.

So she snuck to their table when they weren’t there and ate it every night.

The people we dumb, and they were going to die on their own.

So, she decided, she was going to help them be less dumb.

 

**498 APF**

“Are you sure you know how to do this?”

They were standing in their underwear, knee deep in the lake, staring into the water, and Murphy rolled his eyes.

“Of course I know how to do this,” he said, adjusting his grip on his spear.  “Watch and learn.”

Clarke watched alright.  She watched him hurl his spear at a fish—and then watched the spear completely miss and float off down the shore.

“Shit,” Murphy muttered under his breath, taking off after it, and Clarke sighed.

There were a lot of fish in the lake.  A buttload, if she was being precise.  Logically, it would make sense for them to catch some of those fish and cook them and eat them.

Of course, this didn’t necessarily mean they had any idea how to actually catch a fish in the first place.

In the movies they’d watched in the lab, anytime people were fishing, they used fishing rods.  Clarke and Murphy did not have a fishing rod, which made their job slightly more difficult.  Murphy was sure he’d read about fishing with spears somewhere, but Clarke wasn’t holding out any hope they’d be able to actually make that work.  This was the third time they’d attempted, and they’d never actually managed to catch anything.

Murphy returned with his spear, and Clarke tried her luck with her own only to have to swim out a bit deeper to retrieve it when she, too, missed.

“This is dumb,” Clarke declared a few hours later.  Her arm hurt and her legs were half numb from standing so long, and she was really tempted to go retrieve Seph from her nap and take her swimming instead, since she’d already gotten soaked after slipping on one try.  “We’re never going to catch one.”

“I know what I’m doing,” Murphy insisted, and Clarke rolled her eyes.

“Sure,” she agreed.  “Says the guy who failed Earth Skills.”

Murphy scoffed.  “Like you know any better,” he shot back, “Ms. I-Totally-Passed-Earth-Skills-By-Cheating-Off-Wells.”

“Um, excuse me.  It’s _Doctor_ I-Totally-Passed-Earth-Skills-By-Cheating-Off-Wells, thank you very much.”  Clarke crossed her arms, raising an eyebrow.  “And at least I passed.”

“Passing doesn’t count if you cheat,” Murphy pointed out.

“It does if you don’t get caught.”

Murphy laughed at that, and tossed his spear back towards the shore.

“Fish are dumb anyway,” he decided, flopping down into the water so he could float on his back.  “Screw them.”

Clarke rolled her eyes.  “Please don’t screw the fish,” she said, starting back to the shore to collect the baby.

When she returned with Seph, movement a few metres down the shore caught her eye.  It was The Kid, wading into the water, a spear of their own in their hand.  She watched for a moment longer, and then The Kid shot out their spear, picking it back up from the water with a fish stuck on the end.

“Show off,” Murphy grumbled, and she jumped at the realization that he had come up behind her.

They watched The Kid toss the fish into a basket on shore before returning to the water to try for another, and decided to continue with their impromptu afternoon swim.  If The Kid was going to do their fishing this close to them, they weren’t about to shirk off this huge step forward.

“Come on, kid,” Murphy said, grabbing Seph from Clarke and holding her above his face.  “Let’s turn you into a mermaid.”

A while later, long after The Kid had left and their skin had turned pruney, they finally emerged from the water.

“What’s that?” Murphy asked, and Clarke looked up from wringing out her hair at where he was pointing.

It was a basket, set on the table.  It was one that was definitely not one of theirs, one that had not been there when they’d gone down to the lake.

One that, upon closer inspection, was full of fish.

“They left us a present,” Clarke cooed, her hand ghosting over the dead fish as something welled up inside her.  “They like us.”

Murphy rolled his eyes, but Clarke could tell he was just as touched as she was.

“Or,” he countered, bouncing Seph on his hip, “they think we’re idiots who can’t catch our own fish.”

Yeah, that was definitely a possibility, but Clarke was pretty sure either way that The Kid wouldn’t just leave them fish if they didn’t like them at least a little bit.

 

**506 APF**

Bellamy had volunteered for algae taste testing—and by volunteered he meant he’d been the slowest to touch his nose and call not it—and was spinning around in a desk chair as Monty got things ready, listening to Murphy talk over the radio.  He wasn’t talking about anything, really, and had just claimed to be bored while Clarke was out hunting.

_“It’s almost like mud.  Don’t you think, Seph?”_

Seph was also on the radio call, occasionally babbling her own input into whatever Murphy was saying.

That was really the only reason he hadn’t completely tuned the call out.  Murphy was currently trying to describe the exact shade of the bark of the tree he was staring at, and it would’ve been one of the most boring things Bellamy had ever heard if Seph hadn’t also had opinions on the bark.  It was honestly still a boring conversation, but he’d still never get over hearing his daughter’s voice.

Monty brought over the first batch of algae for him to try, and Bellamy geared himself up.  It wasn’t like the algae they were currently eating was bad—Monty had finally found a recipe that didn’t taste like literal shit—but it wasn’t like it was good, either.  Mostly it tasted like nothing.

The goal now was to find something they actually enjoyed eating, which was apparently easier said than done.

He gagged on the spoonful, swallowing through the disgust and dropped his spoon back into his bowl.

“I’ll take that as a no.”  Monty laughed as he retrieved the bowl, and Bellamy forgot the aftertaste in his mouth as his daughter’s laugh echoed through the speakers.

_“Personally, I don’t think trees are that funny, kid,”_ Murphy was saying.  _“But, I mean, you do you.”_

Monty brought over the next attempt at algae, and Seph’s laughter cut off.

_“Papa, go!”_

_“What?  No.  We’re talking to your daddy, remember?”_

_“Dada, hi!  Papa, go!”_

Bellamy’s grin grew as it always did whenever Seph called him that.

_“No, kid.  Papa’s sleepy.  It’s naptime.”_

_“No!  Papa, go!”_

Murphy’s sigh was long suffering and obviously fake.  _“Fine.  Say bye-bye to your dad, then.”_

_“Bye-bye, Dada!”_

The message clicked off, returning to the music that Harper had had playing before, and Bellamy sighed and dug his spoon into the new algae.  It didn’t actually taste that bad, and he looked back up at Monty to tell him so, only to find his friend staring at him with a strange expression.

“What?”

Monty blinked at him.  “What?”

“What’s with your face?” Bellamy asked, gesturing his hand at Monty.

His friend opened and closed his mouth a few times before shaking his head.  “It’s nothing,” he said, in the way that implied it definitely wasn’t nothing.  “I probably just heard wrong.”

Bellamy frowned.  “Heard what wrong?” he asked, already reaching for the tablet to pull up Murphy and Seph’s message.

“It’s nothing,” Monty insisted again.  “I mean, if Seph was actually calling Murphy _Papa_ , I feel like you’d have had a reaction of some sort.”

A multitude of emotions swamped Bellamy at Monty’s words, and he felt like a dick for feeling every single one of them.  He pulled up the message on the tablet, scrolling through to the end.

_“Dada, hi!  Papa, go!”_

_“No, kid.  Papa’s sleepy.  It’s naptime.”_

He let the rest of the message play out, not listening anymore.

He’d heard Seph say _papa_ before, but had assumed it was babbling.  She was just barely starting to learn words.  Not everything she said meant something.

But Murphy calling himself _papa_ back?  That wasn’t something he could write off as babytalk.

And, shit, he felt like a dick for how that tiny word made him feel.

He was a dick.  His daughter was alive and healthy.  She had the entire Earth to explore, would never know what it was like to be locked away in space.  She had Clarke and Murphy, and from what he heard over the radio, she had a really happy life.

He should be happy she had what she did, not trying not to hate Murphy for getting all of what should be his.

He’d been doing pretty good, too.  At least, he thought he had been.  He hadn’t gotten over missing five years of his daughter’s life—he didn’t think he’d ever forgive himself for that—but he’d accepted that it was what had to happen.  He’d accepted that Murphy would be playing a big part of his role in her life until he came back.  He’d accepted that he’d have to work twice as hard to make sure she knew he was there for her and wasn’t going anywhere when he got back.

But somehow the idea of her calling Murphy _papa_ , of her seeing him as not just a man that was helping raise her but as another dad, was something that had never really crossed his mind.

It was something that made him feel things he knew he shouldn’t be feeling, things he hated himself for feeling at all.

It wasn’t even like Murphy was trying to take his place.  He’d spent the better part of the last hour encouraging Seph to talk to her daddy, even when he’d told them over and over that he didn’t hold any belief that anyone was actually listening to their calls.

Murphy was there for Seph, for Clarke, when Bellamy couldn’t be.

And he hated the fact that he kind of hated him for it.

“Fuck,” he muttered, leaning back in his seat and pressing his fingertips to his eyes.  “I’m a dick, aren’t I?  I mean, he’s raising her.  He’s her dad, too.  That’s not a new thing.  I knew that.  I should be happy she has him, shouldn’t I?”

Monty made a noise that was somewhere between agreement and disagreement.  “I mean, kind of?” he hedged, and Bellamy groaned.  “But you’re also missing out on a lot of your daughter’s life.  I think you can be a dick about it if you want, just as long as you get past it by the time we get back to the ground.”

That was…reasonable.  It didn’t make Bellamy feel any better about hating the fact that his daughter thought of the man that actually raising her right now as her father, or make him hate the whole thing even less.

“Fuck,” he muttered again, deciding he was just going to try not to think about it.  He held out his hand.  “Give me the next one.”

*********

Later that night, Bellamy lay in bed staring up at the ceiling as Clarke’s call rang through the speakers.

He wasn’t feeling any better about any of it, but listening to Clarke was calming him down.  She wasn’t talking about much.  Just about what she managed to kill while hunting and how the sun might be starting to set a little earlier.

He listened to her talk about their plans for the big house, how she loved their little house but once The Kid started living with them, it’d probably be too crowded for them to survive the winter without killing themselves.

As she told him about their plans to start building, their hope that it would be done before the snow started, he realized that Seph calling Murphy _papa_ wasn’t the only sign that they’d become a family of their own.

He was pretty sure Clarke and Murphy still shared a bed, even though there was no reason to when they weren’t stuck in a lab with only one bed, if her complaints a few days before about him hogging the blankets were anything to go by.  Clarke’s outline of the blueprints to their house made him notice they were still going to be sharing a room even then.

All of it made him realize there was no place for him in this house, unless he were to kick Murphy out of the house he’d helped build and had lived in for years.

Maybe he was just in a shitty mood and had decided to start thinking the worst.  He knew Clarke loved him.  She hadn’t said it in so many words, but he’d known long before he’d left her to die during Praimfaya.

But, unless they had plans they hadn’t shared, it didn’t seem like they had anything planned for when he came back, when he’d tell Clarke that he loved her, that he never wanted to leave her behind, when he’d finally get meet his daughter and tell her he was sorry he wasn’t there.

It seemed like they were planning a whole life, just Clarke and Murphy and Seph and the kid who lived in the woods, a life they didn’t expect him to have a part of.

Clarke’s voice had suddenly lost its calming effect, and Bellamy sighed as he realized this was probably going to be another sleepless night.

 

**518 APF**

Clarke was organizing building materials when she heard a sound behind her.  She glanced over her shoulder, watching as The Kid crept over to Seph’s pen.

She ignored The Kid as best as she could—they weren’t really up for talking still and tended to run away whenever Clarke or Murphy made an attempt—but adjusted her position so she could at least make sure they weren’t going to run off with Seph again.  It had only happened the one time, but that was still one time too many.

The Kid played quietly with Seph for a while in the pen, the occasional peal of laughter floating over to Clarke.

“Why’s she in a cage?”

Clarke glanced over at The Kid’s question, finding both Seph and The Kid watching her over the edge of the pen.

“It’s so we don’t lose her,” she said.  “She’s still little, so if she crawled away while we weren’t looking, we might lose her, and that’d be bad.  You can bring her out here to play, though, if you want.

The Kid nodded slowly, like it made sense in a way they couldn’t quite understand, and picked Seph up under her armpits and carried her closer to Clarke.  “What’s her name?”

“Her name is Seph,” Clarke said, trying not to hope this would be a conversation that would actually go further than a couple of questions before The Kid ran off again.

“Hi, Seph.”  The Kid grinned widely, leaning in to press their nose up against Seph’s.  “My name’s Madi.”

Clarke’s heart jumped to her throat.  _Madi_.  The Kid had a name, and now she knew it.

“That’s a nice name,” she said, hoping all the things she was thinking weren’t reflected in her voice.  “My name’s Clarke.”

The Kid— _Madi_ —nodded, waving Troy Bolton over Seph’s outstretched hands.  “Does Seph have a big sister?”

Clarke put down the saw she was still holding, shifting to sit more comfortably.  “No, she doesn’t.”

“Oh.”  Madi let Seph grab the bear’s leg, giggling as she shoved it into her mouth.  “Why not?”

“She just doesn’t.”  Clarke shrugged, trying to sound as casual as she could, like every bit of this conversation wasn’t as big a step as Madi had ever taken with them.  “Maybe she’ll be a big sister one day, though.”

She doubted it.  Seph would be almost five by the time Bellamy got down, and Clarke was pretty sure she wouldn’t want to do the whole baby thing again at that point.  As much as she loved her daughter, babies were a lot of work.

“Maybe,” Madi agreed.  “I used to be a big sister.”

“Yeah?” Clarke’s voice broke on the word, but she was pretty sure it didn’t quite sound as broken as her heart felt at Madi’s admission.

“Yeah.”  Seph grabbed onto Madi’s arm, pulling herself up to stand.  “I had a baby brother.  I don’t remember his name, and now he’s dead.”

Clarke felt like she was going to cry.  She had no idea what to say to this little girl, to the kid who’d been watching them from the woods, in response to finding out that she’d lost her baby brother in what was probably a horrific way, while being so young herself that she couldn’t even remember his name.

“That’s sad,” she decided on.  It was almost definitely the wrong thing to say, but Madi didn’t seem to mind.

“Are you a big sister?” she asked, steering the conversation into a less sad direction.

Clarke shook her head.  “No, I’m not a sister.”

“Oh.”  Madi grabbed onto Seph’s hands, encouraging her to bounce.  “Is the man a sister?”

Clarke smiled.  “No.  Murphy doesn’t have any brothers or sisters, either.”

Madi looked up at her over Seph’s head and frowned.  “Why not?”

“Where we came from…” Clarke paused, trying to figure out how exactly to explain the Ark’s one child policy to a kid who seemed to think it was weird that they didn’t have siblings.  “Where we came from, a mommy and a daddy were only allowed to have one kid.  If the kid had any brothers or sisters, that was breaking the rules.”

“So nobody was a sister?”  Madi looked so confused, and Clarke didn’t blame her.

“Not nobody,” she said.  “I know a girl who is a sister.  She has a big brother.”

“And it wasn’t against the rules?”

“No, it was against the rules.”  Clarke held out her hands for Seph to take as she turned to reach for her.  “She had to hide under the floor whenever anybody came to their house or her and her brother and their mom would get in trouble.”

“Oh,” Madi said, nodding along.  “I had to hide under the floor, too.”

“You did?” Clarke swallowed, tried to make her voice seem like they were still discussing sisters and not the fact that Madi couldn’t remember her baby brother’s name but she could remember having to hide under the floor.

“Yeah.”  Madi tickled Seph’s stomach, making her laugh.  “When the Flamekeepers came.  They were looking for me.”

Right.  Of course.  Because Madi was a nightbleeder.  That was the only way she could have survived Praimfaya.  Of course there had to have been some reason why she hadn’t been sent to the conclave, why she was still alive to have the chance to survive Praimfaya in the first place.

“That doesn’t sound fun,” she said, because she had no idea how you were supposed to comfort a little girl who’d spent her whole life hiding so she could live and because Madi didn’t really seem to be too concerned over it.

“It wasn’t,” Madi agreed.  She leaned forward, pressing a kiss against Seph’s head, and then took off, running back into the forest.

Clarke sat back, tugging Seph into her lap and thinking over everything she’d just learned about Madi.

“Do you want Madi to be your big sister?” she whispered against her daughter’s cheek.  Seph just grabbed a handful of her hair and tugged, laughing, but Clarke took it as a yes.

*********

Murphy came back from hunting tugging a deer behind him.  He dropped it and his spear near the rover for them to skin and cut up later, and stretched out his back as he headed down to the lake to clean the blood off himself.

“Hey,” Clarke said, joining him a few minutes later and dropping down onto a big rock, Seph settling into her lap.  “I have news.”

Murphy glanced up from cleaning the blood from his fingernails, frowning at how wide Clarke was grinning.

“What news?” he asked, because, really, what news could there be?  Had she managed to sort through the wood without getting a splinter?  That would be news.

Clarke’s grin just grew.  “Her name is Madi.”

That…was not something he expected?  He turned his frown on the baby, gnawing on Clarke’s drawstrings.

“Are we changing it?” he asked.  “What’s wrong with Seph?”

Clarke snorted.  “Not Seph,” she said, rolling her eyes.  “The Kid.  Her name is Madi.”  She smiled wider.  “We had a whole conversation today.”

Murphy dropped the scrub brush and had to hurry to pick it back up before it sank to somewhere unknown.

“What?” He felt around in the water, splashing it up over him.  “That’s not fair!  Tell me everything!”

*********

Madi joined them for dinner that night.

She crept out to get her plate while they were still eating, and she took it under the table with her to sit on the ground and never spoke a word, but she ate with them.

Clarke grinned at Murphy over the table, and he reached out to squeeze her hand, and they couldn’t keep the grins off their faces.

They were making so much progress.

The Kid liked them.

 

**521 APF**

Clarke had tried to make a cake.  She’d made a decent one when they were in the lab, but they’d had an oven then, and actual cake ingredients.  So much easier than trying to guess what she could substitute for cake parts and trying to bake them over a campfire.

So there wasn’t a cake.

Murphy had tried to not look like he found her story as hilarious as he actually did when he came out of the house that morning to Clarke frowning over a pile of burnt…berries, maybe?  Grass?  He wasn’t actually sure what Clarke had tried to put in the cake, and was kind of secretly glad it hadn’t worked out well enough to have to pretend he enjoyed eating it.

Burnt maybe-cake and all, it was still nowhere near his worst birthday.

Honestly, just being here, with Clarke and Seph and possibly Madi if she decided to make an appearance, with their little house and the lake and no one trying to kill them, it was shaping up to be one of the better ones.

“Happy birthday,” Clarke said, placing a bag in front of him after they’d finished eating breakfast.

He frowned at it.  “When did you have time to get me a present?”

Clarke shrugged and didn’t say anything, pulling Seph from his arms so he could open it.

The bag was heavier than he expected, and he pulled out a hunk of cement.

“Thanks,” he said dryly, snorting.  “I love it.”

Clarke rolled her eyes.  “Flip it over,” she instructed.  “Idiot.”

Oh.  Obviously.

He flipped the hunk of cement over, and definitely did not feel tears rising in his eyes.

It was a hunk of cement.  He hadn’t been wrong about that.  But indented into the cement were two handprints, one smaller than the other, with four letters arching overtop: PAPA.

“We had extra leftover when we were making the foundation for the big house,” Clarke explained, like this was merely a convenience and not something as amazing as it was.  “It took me, like, three minutes.”

“Shut up,” Murphy said, his fingers tracing over the imprints of Seph and Madi’s.  “I love it.  How’d you convince Madi?”

“You saw her when we were laying the foundation.”  Clarke laughed, and Murphy grinned at the memory.  He was pretty sure half the floor of the big house was covered in Madi’s footprints and handprints and patterns and, at one point when they’d looked away for a second too long, a cast of her face.

“Right,” he agreed.  “Easy.”

“Easy,” Clarke agreed.

Madi chose that moment to come bursting from the forest, her arms full of a wiggling box.

“Happy birthday!” she yelled, loud enough that Seph looked away from the hunk of Clarke’s hair she was chewing to see what the commotion was about.

“What’s in the box?” Clarke asked.

Madi dropped it in front of Murphy, grinning widely at them.  “A present!”  She opened the lid, and Murphy was hit in the face by a torrent of feathers.  “Birthday chickens!”

It was chickens.  Murphy would have been able to see that even without Madi’s helpful clarification, seeing as one had hit him in the face.  There were six or seven of them—he wasn’t entirely sure, as they were currently freaking out a little too much from being packed in a box from wherever Madi had found them to stand still enough for him to count—and, while he wasn’t exactly a chicken expert, he was pretty sure one of them was a rooster.  That would be important for increasing the number of chickens in the future, if he remembered basic biology correctly.

“Wow!” he praised, laughing as he brushed the feathers off of himself.  “This is a great present, Hobbit!”

Madi grinned wider and wiggled excitedly before darting after one and grabbing it by the neck.  A twitch of her wrist later, she was holding the now dead chicken out to him.

“Birthday dinner?”

*********

“So.”  Clarke paused, taking a bite of her chicken.  It tasted great, and she was definitely not complaining that Madi had shown her up in the birthday present department.  “Do you know when your birthday is, Madi?”

Madi nodded, cheeks stuffed with chicken and whatever other parts of dinner she’d shoved in there.

“It’s in the snow,” she replied after she’d swallowed.  “Not the first time, but later when there’s snow.  I’ll tell you when its close.”

“Sounds great,” Clarke said, grinning at Murphy.  At least now she wouldn’t have to wake up one morning to find Madi hating them because they forgot her birthday.  “How old are you gonna be?”

Madi squinted at her, counting her fingers.

“Seven,” she said, after a while.

“Do you know when the snow’s gonna come?” Murphy asked, and Madi just shrugged.

Clearly they weren’t going to get anymore warning than they could figure out on their own as to when winter was actually coming.  That was okay.  They would figure it out.

Seph wiggled in her arms, finished with her dinner, and Clarke put her down on the ground to crawl around while they finished.

Madi was telling them a wild tale about a dragon she’d fought once, waving her arms as she acted it out, and Clarke grinned as she made all the appropriate reactions.

Murphy’s hand tapped hers on the table, and she turned her gaze on him.  He gave her a soft smile and she returned it, knowing without saying anything that he was thinking the same thing as she was.

Madi cut herself off with an excited squeal, pointing out passed the end of the table.

“What?” Clarke asked, turning to look and gasping.

Standing there, a few metres away from the table all on her own, was Seph.

“Come here,” Murphy cooed, pushing out of his seat and crouching down on the ground.  “Can you walk to Papa?”

Clarke mirrored him.  “No, Seph,” she said.  “Come see Mommy.”

Seph let out a gurgled laugh, grinning at them and starting their way with a few stumbling steps.

“Come see Mommy,” Clarke said again, patting her thighs.

“No, come see Papa,” Murphy countered, holding out his arms for her to run into.  “You love Papa more, don’t you?”

In the end, it turned out Seph loved Madi the most, as that was who her destination actually was.

Murphy grumbled about it, mussing both their daughters’ hair, but Clarke couldn’t even bring herself to pretend to be put off.

“You’re getting so big,” she cooed, pressing a kiss to Seph’s forehead.

“Fuck,” Murphy muttered, and she turned to raise an eyebrow at him.  “We’re gonna have to babyproof.”

Clarke groaned, sinking back onto the ground.  “Fuck.”

 

**531 APF**

Murphy woke up groggily.  It was still dark, way too dark to be awake, but he thought he’d heard something.  When another sound didn’t come, he curled back into the blankets, into Clarke, and tried to fall asleep again.

And there it was again.  A sound that was decidedly the door shutting, like someone was deliberately trying to be as quiet as possible.

There was some shuffling, and he lay as still as he could, trying to convince the intruder that he was still asleep even as his hand inched down beside the bed to where some knives were hidden.  The shuffling stopped, and, knife now securely in his hand, he slowly moved to see what had come in.

There was just enough moonlight shining through the window to make out a shape, and he dropped the knife as soon as he could identify what it was.

He lay there in silence a while longer, waiting until the breathing he could hear evened out, and then he reached out to Clarke.

“Hey,” he whispered, gently brushing the hair from her face.  It took a few minutes before she woke, blinking at him in confusion.

He pressed a finger to his lips, then pointed to the end of the bed.  Clarke followed with her gaze, her eyes widening as she took in Madi, curled up in a ball at the end of their bed, sound asleep.

Her eyes snapped back to his, and he grinned as she grabbed his hand.

It took them a while to fall back to sleep.  By the time the woke the next morning, Madi was long gone.

 

**538 APF**

Clarke had a bad feeling in her gut as they loaded the last of their stored food into the back of the rover.  She ran over the checklist in her head again and again, confirming they hadn’t forgotten anything.

“We’ll survive,” Murphy said, coming up beside her and throwing an arm over her shoulders.  If she couldn’t feel how tense he was or hear the strain in his voice, she’d have gone off about how he could’ve been this calm after what had happened the last time.

“You don’t have to come,” he continued, but Clarke was already rolling her eyes before he could start this argument again.

“We’ve been over this,” she pointed out.  “We stay together.”

It was what they’d decided.  The best chances they had at surviving was by staying together.

But it was still terrifying.

They needed to go back to the lab.  There was food and supplies there that would help them get through winter.  They needed to get there.

According to the map, it should only take about a day of driving, if they didn’t hit any problems.  They’d packed so much food that even if they did hit problems, they should be good.  Clarke knew she’d be eating less than normal from the start of their trip, and she didn’t doubt Murphy had the same plan.

It should be quick.  It should be easy.

One day there.  Two days to collect everything they might need and pack it into the rover.  One day to drive back.

Quick.  Easy.  Painless.

Hopefully.

“Are we going yet?” Madi yelled from the front of the rover, and Clarke took a deep breath.

“Coming!” she called back before looking back at Murphy.  “We’ll survive.”

*********

Bellamy had been trying hard to not freak out all day.  Clarke and Murphy hadn’t told them about their plan until they were leaving, like Clarke was trying to save them the worrying.  Like there was any way they couldn’t have worried about them after they’d almost died the last time they’d taken this journey.

There were intermitted calls throughout the day. 

One from Madi, who called him Seph’s daddy sometimes and Bellamy others, who thought Monty was the coolest and wanted him to know every single detail about her chickens.

Two from Clarke, just quick ones checking in and making sure they knew they were still okay, telling them their progress.

One was of the three of them singing Dancing Queen at the top of their lungs, Seph chiming in with the occasional screech.  Madi didn’t have anymore singing talent than either of her adopted parents, but the fact that she was six made the whole thing more cute than painful.

The last one came late at night, after they’d have normally been in bed.  They were gathered in the kitchen instead, leaning against the walls and each other as they waited for the news.

_“We made it,”_ Clarke breathed.  _“We’re at the lab.”_

 

**541 APF**

“We’re home!” Madi yelled, spilling out of the rover and taking Seph with her.  “Hello, chickens!  We’re home!”

Murphy sat in the middle seat a moment longer, leaning his head back with a heavy sigh.  They’d made it.  There had been no issues with the drive.  They hadn’t taken any longer than the minimum time they’d calculated.

“We’re home,” Clarke echoed, leaning back as well, her head falling to his shoulder.  “We survived.”

Murphy nodded his agreement, and then Madi was calling goodbye, ready to leave to wherever she went for the few hours she pretended she wasn’t just going to come crawl into their bed after they were asleep, and they were climbing out to say goodnight.

 

**547 APF**

The door slammed, and someone giggled, and Murphy jerked awake.  The giggles kept coming from outside, and he assumed that Madi had decided to leave while it was still dark for some reason.

“What’s happening?” Clarke mumbled, sitting up beside him.  He could vaguely see her rubbing her eyes, but it was too dark to make out much else.

“Madi left,” he said, laying back down.  “Go back to sleep.”

Clarke didn’t protest, curling back into him.

He was almost asleep again when he felt breathing on his face.

“What the fuck?” he muttered, and Clarke groaned in his arms.  The breathing didn’t let up, and he sighed, whispering to Clarke to close her eyes as he searched the floor for a flashlight.

He found it, confirmed that Clarke wasn’t about to be blinded, and flicked on the light.

Only to come face to face with what he later assumed was Madi’s most recent present.

He screamed.

The goat screamed back.

*********

Madi was sitting in the back of the rover when they got up, the blueprints to the big house in her lap and her feet kicking where they dangled in the air.

Three more goats were grazing in the grass near her feet.

“You got my present!” she called, hopping off the rover when the goat followed them out of the house so she could give it a hug.

“We got your present,” Clarke confirmed, smirking at Murphy when he glared at the goat.

“Good.”  Madi nodded, skipping past them to the table so she could spread out the blue prints.  “I can’t find the goat room.”

Clarke and Murphy shared a look.

“The what?” Clarke asked, following Madi to the table.  She was too tired for this.  Someone needed to teach Madi that leaving goats in their room in the middle of the night with no warning wasn’t the nicest way to go about giving a present.

Madi looked up at her, scrunching up her face like Clarke should just know what she was talking about.

“The goat room,” she repeated slowly.  “For the goats?  So they don’t have to stay outside in the snow and freeze their whole butts off?”

Clarke looked at Murphy, who shrugged.

“I don’t know enough about goats to dispute that,” he said, and, honestly, neither did Clarke.

“I guess we can add one on,” she said, looking over at the house.  “Maybe by the kitchen?  We haven’t finished the wall there yet, and it’s not like goats are going to complain if they have a dirt floor instead of cement.”

“The chickens, too,” Madi added, and Murphy sighed, sinking into a chair at the table with them.

“The chickens, too.”

*********

That night, Madi didn’t wait for them to fall asleep before she joined them.  She brought over a pile of furs after dinner, and settled them on the floor of the little house.  She pushed the basket Seph had still been sleeping in aside, adding Seph’s furs and blankets to the piles, and tugged Seph into the pile with her.

Clarke and Murphy watched, shocked, for a few minutes, before crawling into their own bed.

She was still there when they woke.

 

**553 APF**

“Raven.”

Raven glanced up from the rocket’s oxygenator that she was trying to fix, taking in Harper standing there.

“Yeah?”

“I need a maid of honour,” she said, and Raven felt a grin creeping along her face.  “And I was wondering if you—”

“Yes!” Raven dropped her wrench, leaping up to wrap her arms around Harper.  “I would love to be your maid of honour!”

“Yes!”  Harper cheered and hugged her back, grinning widely when she pulled away.  “Monty’s asking Bellamy to be his best man.  I know he would’ve preferred Jasper to be there, but…”

Raven offered Harper a sad smile, knowing there was nothing any of them could do to make that situation any better.

“So,” she said after a moment, sitting back down to go back to work on the oxygenator.  “When’s the wedding?”

Harper dropped to the floor, shrugging.  “We want to wait until we’re on the ground,” she said, twirling her engagement ring around her finger.  “I want flowers at my wedding.  And sunshine.  And more people than just you guys.  No offence.”

Raven laughed.  “None taken.”

“I heard you need bridesmaids,” Echo said, sauntering into the control room and claiming the wheely chair by Raven.  “I have been one six times, and I have successfully driven a getaway horse once.”

“I don’t think I’ll need a getaway horse.”  Harper snorted, tucking her legs up to her chest and resting her chin on top.  “I could use another bridesmaid, though.  If you’re interested.”

Echo grinned, spinning her chair in a circle.  “Hell yeah, I’m interested.”

Raven leaned forward, dropping her wrench again.  “I need details,” she declared.  “Tell me everything so we can make your wedding perfect.”

Harper hid her grin in her knees, glancing between them for a moment like she wasn’t entirely convinced they actually wanted to hear about her dream wedding.

“Okay,” she finally said, dropping her knees and grinning widely at them.  “Picture this.”

 

**561 APF**

_Clarke’s head rolled back as his lips trailed down her neck, and she couldn’t help but let out a gasp.  She felt him smirk against her skin, felt his hands grip her tighter around her stomach, in her hair._

_He murmured something against her, the vibrations from his words sending sparks down her spine.  She couldn’t quite tell what he’d said, couldn’t quite hear the words, but she knew the tone.  He was teasing her, mocking her for being so turned on._

_“I think.”  She paused, catching her breath, trying to not sound as wrecked as she felt even as he sucked the lobe of her ear between his teeth.  “I think you could be doing better things with your mouth than talking.”_

_“Really?” he countered, his words deep and low against her ear.  He tugged her tighter against him and she could feel every inch of him pressing up against her back.  “What would those things be?”_

_She spun around in his grip, meeting his smirk with her own as she reached up to dig her hands into his hair._

_“Oh,” she said, tugging his head closer to hers.  “I can think of a few.”_

_And then she was kissing him, letting him press her up against the wall, clinging to him like she was starving and he was a five course meal._

_“Murphy,” she moaned when they pulled apart to breath.  His kisses started trailing down her neck again, lower and lower, and her hands tightened in his hair.  “Murphy.”_

_He pulled back again to grin down at her, with his swollen lips and his mussed hair._

_“What do you want?”_

_The words were whispered against her lips, and then his tongue was in her mouth, tangled with his, and she could barely think enough to form a response._

_“You.”_

_He pulled back again to smirk, to whisper something snarky, and then they were tumbling into bed, finally, finally, final—_

Clarke woke with a gasp, pressing herself deeper into the bed.  Murphy was sprawled half on top of her, face pressed into her neck and legs tangled with hers.  He stirred when she woke, murmuring something against her skin that sounded vaguely like an inquiry as to whether she was okay and that should not have made her shiver the way it did.

She told him she was fine, and he hummed in response—the feel of which she completely managed to ignore, thank you very much—and promptly fell back to sleep.

Clarke stifled her groan and closed her eyes, lifting the arm that wasn’t trapped beneath Murphy to press against them.

The dreams weren’t new.  They were a welcome change from the nightmares, no matter how awkward they could be.

Murphy being in the dreams wasn’t even anything new.  More often than not, it was either him or Bellamy featuring in them.  Sometimes both, which she definitely wasn’t highly into.  There were others, sometimes, usually faceless, but it was mostly Bellamy or Murphy.

Bellamy, of course, because she was in love with him.  He’d been featuring in her dreams long before she could even fathom admitting that to herself.

Murphy…well, Clarke figured he was there because of proximity, because he was the only other adult on the surface of the planet, and because she had quite literally been wrapped up in him every night for a year and a half.

It meant nothing, that he was there, nothing but the fact that the last time she’d gotten laid was when Seph had been conceived, which was a fucking long time ago.  She hadn’t slept with anyone in the better part of two years and Murphy was literally right there.  Of course he was going to show up in her dreams.

It didn’t mean anything.  She’d just lay here until she calmed down—which was definitely easier said than done, what with him literally on top of her—and then she’d go back to sleep.

If his arms tightened around her as she lay there in the dark, trying not to think about where her dream had been going, it just meant he was getting more comfortable.  If he moaned her name against her neck, sending sparks out across her skin, well, it wasn’t like she expected him to never have dreams about her either.  If pretending that her dream had reached its climax and that was why he was collapsed on top of her was what finally got her back to sleep, she’d suffered through enough insomnia to know not to complain about how she managed to fall asleep.

And if her dream picked up where it’d left off, with Murphy pressing her into the bed in an entirely different context, it wasn’t like she could control her dreams.

**577 APF**

“Happy birthday to you!  Happy birthday to you!  Happy birthday, dear Seph!  Happy birthday to you!”

Murphy placed the cake down in front of their daughter, and Seph clapped her hands.

“You’re supposed to blow out the candles,” Madi told her, rolling her eyes.

Clarke laughed.  “Maybe show her how to do it.”

Madi blew out the candles, and then grabbed a handful of cake and shoved it in Seph’s face.  The baby giggled, pulling it off of herself and shoving it into her mouth.

“I’m glad you figured out how to make cake again,” Clarke said, leaning into Murphy’s side when he sat back down.

He shrugged.  “It really wasn’t that hard,” he said.  “You’re just a shitty baker.”

Clarke scoffed and then a clump of cake was colliding with his face, and he laughed.

“I don’t think this is the punishment you think it is,” he said, running a finger across his face.  Clarke shrugged, and he reached out to drag his icing covered finger across her cheek.

Murphy laughed as she stuck her tongue out at him, and he pulled the rest of the cake off his face to eat it, leaning back in his seat.

He honestly couldn’t believe Seph was one already.  The year since she’d been born had seemed both so much shorter and so much longer than just a year.

But somehow, she was one, and they celebrated with cake and deer.  They’d made some toys for her as presents, and Madi had come in first again by somehow producing three sheep out of nowhere—they were, apparently, the last of her secret stash of farm animals, but Murphy didn’t quite know if he believed her.  Seph didn’t seem too keen on the sheep, but Clarke had mentioned trying to figure out how to make wool, and Murphy was already dreaming about a new sweater.

“Happy birthday to you!” Madi started again, for what was probably the tenth time that day.  Apparently Grounders didn’t have the happy birthday song anymore, and she’d decided to make up for all her lost chances.

“Happy birthday to you,” Clarke and Murphy joined in.  “Happy birthday, dear Seph!  Happy birthday to you!”

*********

Bellamy was laying on the floor, staring up at the ceiling.

In a perfect world, he’d be with Clarke celebrating their daughter’s first birthday.  He’d get to hold her and be able to tell her how big she’d gotten, because he’d have seen her to know.  He’d get to give her a present and watch her try to blow out her candles and tell her how much he loved her.

In a perfect world, he would know his daughter.

He wouldn’t be stuck up in space, listening to Clarke tell him about her birthday and not getting to experience it himself.

He wouldn’t be hating Murphy for being there instead of him, still, even after how hard he’d been trying to stop.

He’d get to actually be Seph’s dad in practice and not just in name.  He’d get to hold her tight and tuck her in at bedtime and kiss her knees when she fell and scraped them.

He’d have actually been there for her first year of life instead of just hearing about it second hand.

But this wasn’t a perfect world.

So he lay there, on the floor, staring up at the ceiling, and pressed play again when that morning’s radio message ended.

**586 APF**

“It’s so big!”

Madi screamed, running around the rooms of the empty house like she hadn’t been in there every day helping build it.  Seph screamed because Madi was screaming, tottering after her.

“I think they like it,” Murphy commented dryly, and Clarke snorted.

They’d finally finished the big house, goat room and all, and it honestly couldn’t have come soon enough.  Clarke was pretty sure she could still feel her hands hammering even when they weren’t moving.

It was honestly amazing.  There was a big open living room kitchen area, with a fireplace and a table and room for actual appliances if someone was able to get them electricity at some point in the future.

(That someone was decidedly not either of them, and was either some unknown person from the bunker or Raven and Monty.)

The goat room—still dubbed the goat room despite also housing chickens and sheep—was off the side of the kitchen and also had a door to their pen outside.  There was also a bathroom off the kitchen, in the hopes that whoever made electricity work could also reinvent indoor plumbing.  Right now, it was being used for storage.

There was a hallway off the living room, with Clarke and Murphy’s room on one side and two smaller bedrooms on the other.  Madi had decided she was going to share with Seph for now, so the other room would be empty for a while.

It was a simple house, but also so much better than they could have hoped.  The flower boxes still weren’t built on the windows, and neither was the swing in the tree, but they’d get to those in the spring.

But for now, it was done.  Their house was done and they were ready to move in.

“Go get your stuff and put it in your room!” Murphy yelled, and then Madi was running back out of the house with Seph on her trail.

Clarke spun around in the living room, her foot trailing over a picture of a flower that Madi had carved into the cement before it’d set.

“This is our home,” she said, swinging her arms wide.  “We built this.”

Murphy was grinning at her when she stopped, and she couldn’t help but grin back.

This was their home.

They’d built it.

And that was honestly so fucking cool.

 

**602 APF**

It had taken weeks, but Clarke had finally convinced Madi to let her untangle her hair.  There was dirt and sticks and moss sticking out of it, and Clarke honestly wouldn’t have been surprised if she found something living in it.

Murphy had left to see if he could catch any animals that were straggling on the hibernation trail, and Seph was down for a nap inside.  Madi was doodling on a sheet of paper they’d gotten from the lab while Clarke tried not to tug on her hair too much.

Her hair was a mess.  She’d managed to get some of the bigger bits of debris out, but was struggling to even pinpoint an area to start on with the brush.

“When’s the last time you brushed your hair?” she asked, and Madi just shrugged.

It was only a few minutes later that Clarke gave up, knowing there was no way she’d be able to untangle the matted mess of Madi’s hair.

She sighed, dropping the brush on the table and sinking into the chair next to Madi.

“What do you think about me cutting your hair?” she asked, and Madi just looked at her.  “There’s too much stuff stuck in your hair, and I can’t get it out unless I cut it.”

Madi bit her lip, turning her gaze back to her drawing as one of her hands lifted to poke at her hair.

“Look,” Clarke said gently, offering Madi a smile.  “We can cut my hair first, if you want.”

Madi nodded at that, and Clarke quickly pulled her hair into a low ponytail before picking up a knife from the table.  It was relatively clean, didn’t have any blood on it, at least, so she slipped it behind her head.

It took a bit of sawing, but then her ponytail was coming off in her hands and her remaining hair fluttered out just under her chin.

“How’s it look?” she asked Madi, shaking out her hair and dropping the ponytail on the table.

Madi giggled, reaching out to rub the strands between her fingers.  “Good,” she said.  “My turn?”

“Your turn,” Clarke confirmed, standing back up.  Her hair felt short and weird, but she kind of liked it already.  It was definitely going to take a lot of getting used to, though.

“Ready?” she asked, and Madi nodded.

Madi’s haircut was nowhere near as quick as Clarke’s, but eventually her dark hair ended just below her jaw as well.  Madi poked at the strands with her fingers, giggling to herself.

“You like it?”

Madi nodded, and a leaf fell out of what was left of her mess of hair onto the table.

“Awesome,” Clarke said, leaning down to grin at her.  “Ready for me to get the rest of the stuff out?”

Madi nodded again, and Clarke picked the brush back up.

*********

Murphy returned from hunting empty handed and freezing, both of which were to be expected with most of the animals already turned in for the winter.  He dropped the spear off in the little house, calling out to his family that he was home.

He turned back around just in time for someone to throw themselves into his arms, just in time to catch Madi before she tumbled back down.

“Papa, look!” she said, pulling back enough to shake her much shorter hair in his face.  “Me and Mommy have the same hair now!”

“It looks great!”  

Murphy wasn’t sure how he managed to get the words out, but then Madi was wiggling out of his grip so she could go show the goats her new hair, and Murphy was following her with his eyes, trying to figure out how he was supposed to breath again.

Murphy tore his eyes away from his daughter, glancing over to where Clarke stood, just as frozen as he was.

“She said,” he started, then broke off, a smile stretching across his face and stopping the words from coming out.

“She called us,” Clarke tried, but seemed to be having the same issue.  She paused for a moment, her own grin crossing her face.  “We’re really her parents.”

And then they were laughing, and Clarke had thrown herself into his arms and he could tell she was trying just as hard as he was to not cry from happiness as he spun her around.

They were Madi’s parents.

They’d been her parents for a while, really, but she’d called them Mommy and Papa.  She thought of them as her parents.

They were her family.

“You guys are weird.”

They stopped spinning and turned to look at Madi, standing there with Seph on one hip and a judging look on her face that rivaled the best of Miller’s.

“You’re weird,” Murphy snapped back, and Clarke snorted.

Madi said something about going back to the goats, and Murphy turned back to Clarke, matching grins still lighting up their faces.

“This looks good,” he told her, tugging on her hair.

“Thanks,” Clarke said, and then there was a scream.

They ran over to the goats, to Madi, who was standing there completely uninjured and staring up at the sky.

“What is it?” Clarke asked, and Murphy could feel his heart pounding in his chest, his hands itching for a gun, a knife, anything to keep them safe.

Madi grinned at them and waved her arms out, spinning in a circle.

“It’s snowing!”

 

* * *

_Home, home is where the heart is_  
_Love is where you find it_  
_I'ma bring it on home_  
_I'ma bring it on home_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a reminder that next chapter probs won't come till after I'm done finals. I'm hoping to get it up next week, but like no guarantees!
> 
> In the meantime, go check out my fic Bibbidi Bobbidi Bitch if you want more Clarke and Murphy content. It features Murphy as Clarke's fairy godmother, which I feel like is all the motivation you need.
> 
> Kudos pass my finals and comments also pass my finals.
> 
> Come check me out on Tumblr at probably-voldemort
> 
> Happy Finals Season to everyone in uni and Happy April to everyone else :)


	12. as we dream by the fire

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey so I got some comments about tags after the last chapter. I won't be removing the Bellarke tag because Bellarke is a big part of this fic. If you expected more like non-radio call content between Clarke and Bellamy, I'm sorry to disappoint at the moment. But considering it's a 40 chapter fic with a description that says that Clarke and Murphy are on the ground together during Praimfaya, I feel like it should come without saying that Bellamy and Clarke are going to be separated for a while??? And if it doesn't, let me tell you now that Bellamy and Clarke are gonna be separated for a while. Like a long while. We're like a quarter of the way through this fic, guys. Spacekru isn't coming down anytime soon. If this isn't what you expected when you started this fic, I'm sorry, but that's the way it is and I won't be offended if you decide to stop reading. I won't be untagging Bellarke because they're a big part of the story, and I don't see anyone coming after me for having Memori tagged when Emori literally dies in the first chapter.
> 
> Moving on, we've got more episodes again!!! Whoohoo!!! I tend to not watch them until like the Thursday after they air (and I haven't watched last night's episode yet btw!), so if you could keep any spoilers for episodes I most likely haven't seen yet from the comments, that'd be highly appreciated.
> 
> That being said, that Murphy musical number in the first episode is my life. Did someone say validation for how much they sing in this fic? No? Was that just me? Someone needs to give canon!Murphy some High School Musical. I feel it. And generally there's a lot of Murphy in this episode and I'm feeling it. He needs to stop being a dick to Clarke though. Clarke my babe. She deserves better.
> 
> So this chapter. It took a lot longer than I thought it was going to and I ended up having to split it in half. Otherwise it still wouldn't be done and would be like 20k+ if I didn't split it. So it's been split. Most of the meaty angsty bits are in the later half, so this is mostly filler and fluff.
> 
> The song for this chapter is Walkin' In A Winter Wonderland because the song I had for this chapter goes with what is now gonna be the next chapter and I had to improvise lol.
> 
> I think that's it for now! Please enjoy!

_Sleigh bells ring, are you listenin'?_  
_In the lane snow is glistenin'_  
A beautiful night  
_We're happy tonight  
_ _Walkin' in a winter wonderland_

* * *

  **609 APF**

Something heavy landed on Clarke’s stomach, and she woke with a gasp as all the air rushed from her chest.

“Happy birthday!” Madi yelled, her voice rising until she was just screeching at the end.  Seph just screamed, jumping up and down on Clarke’s gut.

“Thanks, girls,” Clarke murmured, wrapping her arms around Madi and Seph and tugging them down into the blankets with her, squishing them into the pillows.

“Mom _my_ ,” Madi giggled, pushing against her.  “It’s time to get _up_.  It’s your _birthday_ , and there’s more _snow_.”

“’no,” Seph agreed.  “Up, Mama!”

“Nope.” Clarke shook her head, cuddling them deeper into the bed.  “It’s Mommy’s birthday, and Mommy says we’re gonna celebrate by sleeping.”

Madi giggled harder, struggling against Clarke’s arms.  “Papa, save me!”

“No way,” Murphy said, voice still rough from sleep.  He flopped over in bed, laying across all three of them and crushing them even further into the bed.  “It’s naptime.”

“No,” Madi said, stretching out the word as she wiggled under them.  “Papa, I’m gonna drown.”

“Down,” Seph echoed, giggling as she burrowed closer to Clarke.

“Nope,” Clarke repeated, closing her eyes.  “We’re sleeping.”

“Mom _my_ , the ducks are _waiting_.”  Madi squirmed harder.

“Ducks?” Clarke asked.  “What ducks?”

“Your birthday ducks.”  Madi shoved on Clarke’s ribs.  “They’re in the living room.”

“I thought you said you didn’t have anymore secret animals,” Murphy pointed out, words muffled against the pillow.

“I forgot them.”  Their daughter wiggled some more.  “Let me _out_.”

Madi continued to groan and wiggle, but Clarke and Murphy just held them tighter.  Clarke was just about back to sleep when she smelled it.

Murphy rolled off them with a groan, and Madi wiggled away quickly as Seph cackled on the bed.  Clarke opened her eyes and wrinkled her nose at her baby.

“Poop,” she giggled, like it wasn’t obvious.

Clarke sighed.  “Poop,” she agreed.

 

**618 APF**

_“Yo, I’ll tell you what I want what I really really want.”_

_“So tell me what you want what you really really want.”_

“I don’t get this song,” Monty said, sorting through his cards as Clarke and Murphy’s call and response bounced around the room.  “What does it even mean?”

“It means.”  Harper paused, laying down some cards.  “That if you wanna be my lover, you gotta get with my friends.”

“Cause love may last forever, but friendship never ends,” Raven added, nodding sagely as she piled another card on top of Harper’s.

“Did you not get with my friends, Monty?” Harper asked, glancing over at him.  “Is that what you’re worried about?”

Monty rolled his eyes.  “No,” he said.  “I get that part.  What’s a zigazig-ha and why does Murphy want it?”

“He doesn’t want it,” Echo argued.  “He really, really, _really_ wants it.”  She tossed some cards onto the table.  “Crazy eights!  I win!”

“We’re not playing crazy eights,” Harper pointed out.

“I still win.”

Bellamy lifted up the cards so he could look at them and shrugged.  “She does.”

“Yes!”  Echo threw her fist in the air.  Monty was pretty sure she was going to start actually victory dancing one of these days.

He collected the cards to shuffle them, and the song crackled off as a radio call started, the indistinct sounds of Clarke and Murphy and Madi talking over each other filling the Ark.

 _“Just do it,”_ Madi huffed, and Monty grinned to himself as he started dealing the cards.  From what they’d heard of Madi, she seemed to be giving Clarke and Murphy a hard time.  As someone who’d known both of them as kids, Madi seemed to be made of some kind of cosmic karma.

 _“Do I really have to?”_ Murphy asked, a whine seeping into his voice.  _“It’s dumb.”_

 _“Your face is dumb.”_ Monty laughed at Madi’s insult.

“Your _face is dumb.”_

 _“Yes, you have to do it.”_   It was Clarke now, and Monty finished handing out the cards, picking up his own to sort through them.  _“If you didn’t want to face the consequences, you could’ve just picked truth.”_

 _“Like a chicken!”_ Madi yelled, and then started making chicken noises.

 _“What even is your angle here?”_ Murphy wanted to know.  _“Why do you want drama?  You’ve never even met these people?”_

Madi stopped her chicken noises, but there were still fainter ones in the background that Monty put down to being made by Seph.

 _“It’s fun,”_ Madi said, like it should’ve been obvious.  She started giggling.  _“They’re gonna be so mad.”_

“Are we sure this kid isn’t biologically Murphy’s?” Raven asked, laughing as she laid down some cards.

_“You’re kind of a dick, kid, you know that?”_

_“Murphy,”_ Clarke admonished, but she was laughing, too.

 _“Just do it,”_ Madi insisted, and Murphy’s sigh was louder, the radio closer to his mouth now.

 _“Fine,”_ he said.  _“Hello, people of the Ark.  How are you doing today?  I, personally, am being blackmailed by a six year old, so I hope you’re doing better.  Or worse.  I don’t really care.  You do you.  Oww.  Stop hitting me, Madi.  I’m getting to it.  There’s something I need to tell you.”_   Murphy’s voice turned serious, and Monty glanced up from his cards at the others.   _“I should’ve told you years ago before things happened, because this is gonna be real awkward now.  It’s burning a hole in my heart keeping this in, guys.  I can’t stay quiet anymore.  I have to tell you.  The timing is terrible, but you have to know.  I can’t keep this a secret any longer.  It’s eating me alive.”_

He paused— _“It’s for dramatic effect, Madi.  Let me do this.”—_ and Monty shared a look with the others.  Whatever drama Madi wanted him to cause, there was no way it would be anything serious.  Murphy wasn’t serious, for one, and for another, he’d never tell them something serious through a dare whether he thought they could hear him or not.  And he’d made it very clear that he did not share Clarke’s belief that they were listening.

But when Murphy finally broke his dramatic pause, it was with something Monty hadn’t ever thought to expect.

_“Monty, I’m still in love with you.”_

That was then followed by what could only be described as evil cackling coming from Madi, an indication that she was happy with the drama she’d caused.  _“Papa, that’s—”_

The radio cut off then, Clarke and Murphy’s terrible singing coming back in, and Madi’s cackling was replaced with Harper’s.

“I forgot,” she said, leaning over to press her face into his shoulder, her own shaking.  “Oh my god, Monty.  I forgot you dated Murphy.”

“I wouldn’t exactly call it dating,” Monty countered, laughing along.

“Wait.”  Bellamy dropped his cards on the table and leaned forward.  Echo took the distraction to switch some of their cards.  “You dated Murphy?”

“Sometimes I forget you’re old,” Raven mused, grinning at Bellamy.  “Even I knew they dated.”

Bellamy grumbled something about not being _that_ old, and Monty laughed.

“It was barely dating,” he repeated.  “I was, like, eleven and we dated for maybe two weeks.”

“You dated for at least a month,” Harper countered.  “You were the it couple of sixth and seventh grade.”

“We never even kissed!” Monty threw his arms in the air, lowering them again as soon as he caught Echo sneaking a look at his cards.  “We held hands sometimes and that was the extent of our dating.  How were we the it couple?”

Raven grinned at him, leaning back in her seat.  “I heard he said he loved you on your second date.”

“It was the third, actually.”

“Did you say it back?” Echo wanted to know.

“Of course.”

Bellamy laughed.  “Wait,” he said, shaking his head.  “So you said you love each other, but you didn’t even kiss?”

Monty rolled his eyes.  “I was eleven,” he reminded him.  “Murphy was twelve, and, I mean, you’ve met him.”

He wasn’t entirely sure what he meant by that, but maybe you just had to have dated Murphy for it to make sense.  If he remembered correctly, he’d been the one to ask Murphy out.  Yes, Murphy had said _I love you_ first, but that was what Murphy did.  Murphy pretended he didn’t feel things, but once his feelings were validated, he didn’t hold back. 

At least, that’s what he’d done when they were kids.  They hadn’t spent a lot of time together after the break up and before being sent to the ground, and, really, he’d tried to avoid Murphy as much as possible after that, too.

But, anyway, they weren’t even teenagers yet.  Monty was pretty sure if he asked, Murphy would agree that they hadn’t really been in love with each other.  Not in the way he loved Harper, or the way Murphy had loved Emori.

So they hadn’t kissed.  They were preteens who’d dated for somewhere between two weeks and a little over a month, who’d never dated anyone before.  Kissing hadn’t even really been on Monty’s mind at that point, and, considering Murphy hadn’t tried to initiate it, it probably hadn’t been on his either. 

“You better not leave me for him,” Harper laughed, pressing a kiss to his cheek.  “As much as you’re definitely still in love with him, I’m the one you proposed to.”

“I know,” Monty agreed, leaning over to kiss her properly.  “I promise I won’t leave you for Murphy.”

“Good.”

“Did anyone else date each other?” Bellamy asked, earning him a few more old man comments and Echo stealing a few more of his cards.

Monty thought for a moment, trying to think back to when they’d been on the Ark the first time, when everything was easy and his biggest worries were passing his history test and keeping his marijuana plants hidden.  It seemed so long ago.

“Didn’t Clarke and Miller date?” Raven asked, and Harper clapped her hands.

“Yes!” she said, nodding quickly.  “They did!  That’s how Miller figured out he’s gay.”  She elbowed Monty in the side, smirking at her.  “ _And_ they actually kissed.”

“Fuck off.”  Monty rolled his eyes.  “Didn’t you date Dax?”

Harper scoffed.  “Um, excuse you.  Dax and I had a very lovely marriage, thank you very much.”  She crossed her arms over her chest, leaning back in her seat.  “And then we turned seven and he caught cooties and I had to divorce him.”

Bellamy laughed.  “As you do.”

“I also dated both Macallan and Monroe,” Harper added, turning back to Monty. _“And_ I kissed them both, so you need some better arguments.”

“You dated Clarke too, didn’t you?” Raven asked.

“For a hot minute,” Harper confirmed.  “It was more of a rebound thing, though.  Miller had just come out and dumped her and me and Macallan had broken up and I thought I might be into girls.  It was great, but her internship took up too much time, so it didn’t work out.”

Monty laughed, turning to wiggle his eyebrows at Raven and Bellamy.  “Speaking of rebounds.”

Echo laughed, lowing her cards to stare at them.  “Wait?  Really?  You two?”

“How do you even know that?”  Raven asked, crossing her arms.

“Did anything stay private at the Dropship?” Monty asked, because, really, they should’ve known that everyone knew.

“Yeah, really,” Harper agreed.  “I thought it was just common knowledge that you two hooked up to try to get over Finn and Clarke when you thought they were off fucking but they were really, what?  Kidnapped?”

Of course, there was only one part of that that Bellamy heard.

“I didn’t hook up with Raven to try to get over Clarke.”

Monty rolled his eyes, and Harper shook her head.

“Yeah, you did,” Raven said.  “Even I knew that, and I’d been on the ground for like two days.  Why do you think I picked you?”

“Cause I’m hot?”

Raven laughed.  “Sure, if that makes you feel better.”

“Oh my god!”  Harper smacked her hands on the table.  “Monty totally dated Roma!”

“Full house,” Echo announced, dropping some cards that were decidedly not a full house on the table.  “Not that anybody cares.  Didn’t Bellamy date Roma too?”

 

**625 APF**

“Are you sure this is safe?”

Madi nodded, tugging her scarf tighter around her neck.  “I do it all the time.”

Murphy frowned, and Clarke elbowed him in the side.  “Yeah, Murphy,” she said.  “She does it all the time.”

Murphy turned to look at her, frowning.  “And you’re not even slightly worried that someone’s going to fall through the ice?”

Clarke rolled her eyes, turning back to the lake where Madi had already dragged out Seph, slipping and sliding through the snow that had piled on top of the ice.

“We watched that moose walk across it the other day,” she reminded him.  “I don’t think all of us together weigh as much as a moose.”

Murphy still looked apprehensive, so she rolled her eyes again and grabbed his hand, pulling him out onto the ice.

She immediately fell on her ass, bringing Murphy tumbling with her.  The snow broke her fall, but that didn’t stop her hip from hurting from where she’d fallen on it.

“Fuck,” she moaned, flopping onto her back in the snow.  The cold was already seeping through her clothes into her bones, and she honestly didn’t know how Madi and Seph could still stay out in it as long as they could.

“That went great,” Murphy commented dryly, and Clarke threw a half-hearted handful of snow in his direction. 

“Fuck off.”

She lay there a moment longer, staring up at the swirling snow that was still falling, always falling.  Clarke wasn’t sure how much it could snow before the sky ran out, but it didn’t seem to be stopping anytime soon.

Which was okay.  They had overstocked with food and wood, and should be able to make it to spring with both.  If not, there were trees and they’d seen the occasional animal.  If they had to, they could shoot the moose.  Moose probably tasted good, and it was so big that it’d definitely last them at least the rest of the winter.

So they were good.  Cold and wet and occasionally sick, but good.

She pushed herself back up, dusting the snow off her hat.

“Come on,” she said after she stood, holding out her hand to Murphy.  He lay there for another moment, staring up at her gloved hand with an unamused expression, before taking it.

Their second attempt at ice skating went better than their first.  They managed to mostly stay on their feet, scuffling their boots slowly across the ice.

Madi, of course, skated circles around them, taunting them for being slow pokes and losers.  Seph decided it was more fun to sit and eat the snow than to skate.

It ended when Clarke couldn’t feel her toes or her nose, and when Murphy took a particularly hard fall into a snow drift.

“Can I go build a snowman?” Madi asked, already sprinting past Clarke across the ice, Seph slowly crawling after her.

“How the fuck can she do that?” Clarke slowly made her way towards Murphy, still sitting half-buried in snow.

“Fuck if I know.”

He held up his hands as Clarke approached, smirking up at her.

“What, you can’t stand up yourself?” she asked, grabbing hold of them.

Trusting Murphy to not be, well, Murphy was her mistake.  A mistake that she realized the second she landed head first in the snow beside him.

She pushed herself up, gasping in cold air like she hadn’t breathed in more than the few seconds her face had been buried.  Murphy was laughing, slowly skating his way back towards their house.

“John Murphy, I’m going to fucking kill you!” she screeched, too busy laughing as she tried to regain her footing to notice the way he froze for a moment, the laughter dying in his throat.

“I’d like to see you try!” he yelled back, just a beat too late, a beat Clarke would have noticed if she wasn’t so focused on her footing.

It wasn’t exactly a high-speed chase across the frozen pond, both of them slipping and stumbling and slowly plowing along.  Madi cheered them on occasionally, holding Seph up and getting her to yell, too.

By the time they reached the shore, the snow that wasn’t hiding ice, Murphy wasn’t far ahead enough ahead of her to dodge her jump, and Clarke landed on his back.

“What are you doing?” he laughed, and Clarke leaned backwards just enough to throw him off balance, sending them both tumbling into the snow.

“Payback, bitch,” she told him, grinning down at him in triumph, and rubbed a handful of snow in his face.

*********

Murphy finally hand feeling back in all of his body.  His toes were still a little tingly, but generally he was confident that all his body parts were still there and functioning.

His unfrozen hands were wrapped around a mug of tea, and he sipped at it as he listened to Madi read.  She was learning pretty quickly, still needed them to help her sound out words sometimes, but generally she was pretty good at it.  She was leaning against the couch by Murphy’s feet, wrapped in every blanket and fur from her and Seph’s room, only her face and her hands sticking out.  Seph was in her lap, definitely asleep and not at all listening to Madi’s story.

Clarke was spread out across the couch, her legs hanging over one armrest, her head in his lap.  They were wrapped in blankets too, the combination of those, the tea, and the crackling fire a nice contrast to the cold that had seeped into their bones.

He finished his tea, leaning over to place it on the end table, and then settled back into the couch.  His thoughts drifted away from Madi’s reading, back to their ice skating adventure.  Or, more accurately, what Clarke had said.

John.

She’d called him John.

Sure, she’d used his full name so she could threaten to kill him, but it was still the first time in a while that anyone had used his first name.

He really hadn’t thought about it before now.  It wasn’t something he heard, something he considered.  The last time he’d heard his first name was when he was dehydrated and hallucinating, when he’d thought she was Emori.  He couldn’t remember now what he’d said to her after she realized he wasn’t hallucinating anymore, but that was the last time she’d used it.  And, considering Seph only knew him as Papa and Madi probably didn’t know he even had another name besides Murphy and now Papa, no one else had used it, either.

It was something so small and trivial that he didn’t even think about it until Clarke had used it today.

Murphy wasn’t sure how he should feel about it.  He didn’t know why his parents had named him John when there was already another John his age, but they were basically the only ones to call him his first name most of his life.

Until Emori.

It shouldn’t feel as big as it did, that Clarke had used his fucking first name.  In a joking death threat, of all things.  He knew it shouldn’t.

But it was.

Somehow, without even noticing, he’d missed it.  He’d missed having someone use his first name, even just occasionally.  Clarke calling him John didn’t feel like when his parents had, or even when Emori had.  It was different.  It was nice.  It was…he didn’t really know how it felt, with there really only being the one time and the context it’d been in and all, but he liked it.

Madi asked him for help on a word, and he forced himself back into the present.

“Photosynthesis,” he read.  “It’s when plants eat the sun and water and turn it into air for us to breathe.”

Madi went back to the story, and Murphy glanced down at Clarke.  She was half asleep in his lap, her eyes drooping shut and her breathing steady.  He’d started running his fingers through her hair at one point, absently winding through the strands and brushing against her scalp.

He didn’t stop himself now—it was nothing they hadn’t done a hundred thousand times before—but found words bubbling up in his chest.

“Clarke,” he said, quiet enough that it wouldn’t wake her if she really was asleep, and wouldn’t disturb Madi’s reading.  Clarke’s eyes blinked open, and she gazed up at him with a half-asleep glaze in her eyes.

“Mmm-hmm?” she mumbled, eyes already drooping shut again.

Murphy took a shaky breath, nervous for no reason.  He didn’t even know what he wanted to say to her, why he’d woken her.

“You can call me John,” he found himself saying, looking away from her.  “If you want.”

“What?”  Clarke’s question was slurred with sleep.

“I mean, not all the time,” Murphy hurried to correct, running his free hand through his own hair.  “Obviously.  That’d be—that’d be weird, right?  But, I mean, you said it earlier, and you were threatening to kill me and all, but it’s the first time anyone’s said it in a while, and it didn’t hurt.”  He looked back down at her then, her blue eyes more focused on him than he’d expected them to be.

“So you can call me it,” he finished lamely.  “If you want.”

Clarke’s eyes fell shut again.  “Okay.”

“Not all the time,” he repeated.  “But like once in a while or whatever.”

“Okay.”  It was weak, quiet, barely conscious.

“You don’t have to,” Murphy whispered, part of him hoping she’d take the out and another part hoping she wouldn’t.  He didn’t know which part he wanted to win out.

“Okay,” Clarke said again, hardly a murmur, and then she was snoring.

*********

He thought she’d forgotten about it.  She’d been half asleep for the conversation, after all, and it’d been hours and she’d only called him Murphy.  He wasn’t sure why he was so disappointed by that.

Clarke finished stoking the fire, and he turned off the light as she crawled in bed with him, curling up against him.

Once she was settled and he’d finished their nightly routine by cursing out her perpetually frozen limbs, she squeezed his hand in her own cold one and whispered, “Goodnight, John.”

It was now, lying in bed, the darkness broken only by the flickering flames of the fire, that Murphy finally realized how it felt, how Clarke saying his name made him feel.

Warm.  Safe.  Home.

He didn’t know where the lump that was suddenly in his throat came from, but it took him longer to swallow it down and form a reply than it should’ve, long enough that there was no way Clarke couldn’t’ve noticed.

“Goodnight, Clarke.”

 

**628 APF**

“What are we doing?” Bellamy asked, leaning back against the wall and crossing his arms.

Harper and Monty had called them all into one of the empty rooms but hadn’t said anything about why they were there.  There was a screen on the wall and a projector set up, and two metal squares on the floor with arrows drawn on them.  Bellamy didn’t know what the squares meant, but they’d clearly figured out something digital, and Bellamy was kind of hoping for a movie.  It’d been years now since he’d seen one.  Even just one movie would take away some of the boredom and give them something to do other than talk and play card games and listen to Clarke and Murphy’s horrible singing.

“Alright.”  Harper clapped her hands, looking up from the tablet Monty was holding.  “Are you ready for the most fun you’ve had in years?”

“Honestly, anything would be the most fun I’ve had in years,” Echo said, leaning back in her chair.  “Getting pneumonia would be more exciting than everything we’ve got going on.”

Harper ignored her and gestured at Monty.  “My lovely fiancé did some technology coding magic I don’t understand,” she said.  “And now we have—”

She paused, grinning at them and Monty hit something on the tablet, the screen lighting up behind them.

“Dance Dance Revolution!” they both yelled, the menu screen behind them flashing.

“What the fuck is Dance Dance Revolution?” Echo asked.  “What are we revolting against?  Why is the revolution using dancing and not fighting?  Why is dance there twice?”

“All good questions,” Monty laughed.

“I dibs first round,” Raven said, pushing to her feet.  “I kicked ass at this game.”

“So did I,” Harper challenged, cracking her fingers.

Monty scrolled through the tablet, the song options scrolling on the wall at the front of the room with his movements.  “I’ve only gotten, like, twenty songs coded for it,” he said.  “I can do more later, but I can only listen to Clarke and Murphy singing on repeat for so long.”

“Do that one!” Echo said, pointing at a song.  “I don’t know what we’re doing, but that one is particularly terrible and probably distracting.”

Monty laughed and selected the song as Raven and Harper took their places on the squares and Bellamy sunk into the seat next to Echo.

_“I come home in the middle of the night, my mother says when you gonna live your life right?  Oh mother dear, we’re not the fortunate ones, oh girls just wanna have fu-un.  Oh girls just wanna have fun!”_

Bellamy explained the rules to Echo as they watched Harper and Raven scramble around on the pads, cringing every time Clarke stumbled over a note or Murphy hit a falsetto that threatened to burst their eardrums.  Echo had been right about the song being distracting, as Harper and Raven kept stumbling.

It was close, but Harper pulled through with the win, pumping her fists in the air and dancing around.

“My turn!” Echo declared, standing up.  “I challenge the winner, and we’re doing the gay baseball song.”

“Have we figured out why it’s gay yet?” Bellamy asked as Monty queued up I Don’t Dance.  “Or are we still just going on Clarke and Murphy’s word?”

“It’s clearly a metaphor for bisexuality in a time where that was still stigmatized.” Raven parroted Clarke’s words from one radio message as she took Echo’s vacated seat.  “Get your act together, Bellamy.”

Bellamy rolled his eyes.  “I play winner,” he called, knowing it’d be an easy round with Harper already having played two rounds.  With the way Echo was flailing all over, there was no way she’d be taking victory.

“Dancing is a stupid way to revolt,” Echo complained between dance steps.  She reached out and shoved Harper off her board, the disruption doing nothing to decrease the difference between their scores.  “If you want a successful revolution, you need to fight, not dance.”

“There’s no contact in this game!” Harper laughed, retaking her spot.

“What kind of revolution doesn’t have contact?”

 

**633 APF**

Clarke stared up at the ceiling, or, rather, the darkness.  It was starting to get chilly, which meant that the fire was probably on its way out, but fixing that meant getting out of bed and leaving the warmth she and Murphy had created under the blankets.

Even with the chill, it was warmer here than it ever was in the temperature regulated Ark.  She wondered, not for the first time, what everyone up there was doing, what she’d be doing if she’d made it on the rocket.

She could pretty much guarantee that she wouldn’t be curled up in bed with Murphy, their daughters asleep in the next room.

She’d be sleeping in Bellamy’s arms, probably.  Almost definitely.  Seph would probably be in bed with them, to share their warmth, or at the very least in their room.

If she’d made it onto the Ark, she’d have Bellamy with her.  She’d still have Murphy, but she’d also have Raven and Harper and Monty and Echo, more than just one adult to talk to.  And she’d be with Bellamy, and Bellamy would know their daughter, and they’d be together.

But she wouldn’t have Madi.  She wouldn’t have this house and the snow and Earth and actual food, and she’d have to be on the Ark. 

She rolled over, closer to the heat coming off Murphy, resting her cheek on his chest.  She could feel his breathing, the uneven rise and fall of his chest telling her he was still awake.

“Do you ever think about it?”

Murphy’s arm shifted under her, his hand moving to absently run up and down her arm.  “Think about what?”

“You know.”  Clarke closed her eyes, her fingers tracing over his chest.  “What it’d be like if we’d made it to space.”

Murphy’s fingers paused and his breathing stuttered, and he was silent long enough for Clarke to regret voicing her question.

His fingers resumed their pattern after a while, brushing against her skin for a few long moments before he finally spoke.

“I try not to,” he said, voice quiet.  “I mean, the first option is that we’d have managed to save Emori.  We’d be up there, on the Ark, and she’d be alive and we’d have Max and I just—” He cut himself off, his voice breaking, and Clarke moved her arm, wrapping it around him and holding him tightly.  “I just can’t think about that without feeling like I’m going to break down again.”

Clarke pushed herself up, looking down at him, at the vague outline of his face that she could see in the dark.  “Murphy—”

“The other option,” he interrupted, his hand moving to her back to push her back down.  She let him move her, hating that she’d brought up whatever this conversation had turned into.  “The other option is that she still didn’t make it, but we made it back in time.  I probably wouldn’t have been able to save you.  I doubt there’s anywhere near as much medicine on the Ark as what you used in your coma.  If we made it to the Ark, you’d probably be dead, too.” 

Even tinged with the thickness that came from talking about Emori and Max, he said it so matter-of-factly that Clarke couldn’t help but think he’d gone through all these scenarios already, running over the what ifs in his head.  But instead of getting the good—having Bellamy, having their friends, having a daughter who actually knew her father—he got the bad.  The death.  The reality.  The fact that maybe being away from Bellamy, being on Earth with her house and the snow and her kids and Murphy, maybe this really was the best-case scenario.

“You probably would’ve been dead,” he repeated, fingers brushing over her arm.  “And, since I’d have been the one who failed to save you, Bellamy would hate me.  Never mind the fact that him opening the bunker is a big part of why Emori’s dead, that we’d be even or some shit.”  He paused again, his hand gripping her tightly for a moment before moving again.  “He’d blame me and hate me, and we’d probably have fought because Emori had just died, too, and I probably would’ve floated myself or otherwise just given up.”

They lay there in silence for a while after that, Clarke trying to figure out what to say in response to Murphy’s admission, that he was pretty sure that not making it to the Ark was the only reason either of them were alive.

If Murphy’s guess had been true, she’d probably have been gone before they reached the Ark.  They never would’ve found out about Seph, let alone held her or kissed her or loved her.  Madi would’ve still been on her own.  Murphy—if what he guessed about himself was true, and, knowing how he was after Praimfaya, how making sure she stayed alive was what kept him going for the first while—wouldn’t have been doing much better than she would have been, if at all.

“Or maybe, somehow, I would’ve been able to save you,” Murphy continued, voice so low that Clarke could barely hear him as close as they were.  “You’d be alive and you’d have Bellamy, and I’d be all alone.”

Clarke didn’t get much sleep that night, and, based on Murphy’s breathing patterns, neither did he.  She couldn’t get his words out her head, all the ways things could’ve been so much worse than they were.  She wouldn’t see Bellamy for a few more years, had to wait for him to meet their daughter and to tell him how she felt, but other than that, things were good.  They were really good.  She had her daughters and Murphy and the life they were building here.  They were all alive and no one was currently trying to kill them, and things were good.

She held Murphy closer in the dark, pressing her face against his chest.

She could wait a few more years to see Bellamy.  Things were good and she could wait.  It’d be safe for them to come down before they knew it.

For now, she squeezed Murphy again before dragging herself out of bed to throw some wood on the fire.

 

**661 APF**

Murphy woke to Madi’s knee in his gut as she clambered over him, the same way he’d woken the last few days.

“Oops.”

Madi dropping Seph on his face was new, though.

He felt Clarke shift away, resisted the strange urge that bubbled up inside him to tug her closer.  This was just their routine now.  Madi crept into their room with Seph in the morning.  Sometimes she jumped on their bed, but most mornings she pulled back the blankets and wiggled her way between them, pulling Seph along with her.

The latter was her destination this morning, and Seph, who somehow hadn’t woken from Madi pulling her from her own bed and then dropping her on Murphy’s face, curled into his side, one of her little fists grabbing his shirt.

Murphy dozed for a while, waking up again when Madi started to get impatient, wiggling around between them.

“You didn’t say it,” she hissed when he rolled over, throwing his arm around all three of them.

“Didn’t say what?” Clarke murmured, voice heavy with sleep.

“Happy birthday,” Madi sighed, voice telling them that they should’ve known.  “It’s my birthday.”

Murphy peeled open his eyes, meeting Clarke’s over Madi’s head.  This was the first he’d heard of this, and, from the look on Clarke’s face, it was the first she had, too.

“I thought we asked you to tell us when it was coming up,” Clarke said, and Madi shrugged.

“I forgot.”

“Happy birthday,” Murphy said, tightening his arm around the three of them.  “But can we sleep a little longer?  The rooster hasn’t even woken up yet.”

“But it’s my birthday,” Madi whined, wiggling.

“And it’ll still be your birthday in a few more hours,” Clarke pointed out, and Madi huffed but snuggled back into bed.

When Murphy woke again, the rooster was crowing from the goat room and Madi was scrambling out of bed, hurrying them along.

“Seven year olds are early birds apparently,” he mumbled, and Clarke snorted.  “And impatient.”

“Six year olds were impatient too,” Clarke pointed out, helping lower Seph to the floor, and Murphy laughed.

The only good thing about Madi’s birthday suddenly happening out of nowhere was that she’d previously told them there was snow on her birthday, so they’d at least had kind of an idea of when it’d randomly happen.  Which meant they weren’t completely unprepared gift-wise.  Murphy didn’t even want to imagine what kind of tantrum Madi would throw if they didn’t have any presents.  Last time she’d been upset with them, she’d smashed a flower vase and then declared herself moving out and had taken the animals to live in the little house for three days.  And that had just been over having to wait for more cookies to bake before she could eat them, nothing as serious as not having any birthday presents.

Madi was already outlining their day to Clarke by the time Murphy joined them in the living room, flopping down on the couch.

“Um, no,” Madi said, suddenly appearing in front of him with her hands on her hips.  “We need pancakes.  Mommy always burns them.  You need to make them, Papa.  It’s my birthday.”

“Right,” Murphy agreed, pushing back off the couch.  He shared a look with Clarke, trying not to laugh too obviously.  “Of course we need pancakes.”

Madi’s Fantabulicious Birthday Party Day Of Super Fun (her words) was very much a day of super fun.  It started with pancakes, then went to building snowmen (“You have to knock it back down, Mommy.  There’s got to be just seven for my birthday.”), then to drawing pictures, and then baking a cake, and then an impromptu addition of a nap when Madi just collapsed on the couch a little after lunch.

“I think I need a nap, too,” Clarke said, and Murphy laughed and fell onto the couch next to her, practically onto her lap.  It wasn’t his fault, though.  Madi was taking up about seventy five percent of the couch and disturbing Madi during a nap was not something that ever needed to be repeated.

“Agreed.”  He picked up Seph from the floor, tucking her into his lap.  She’d fallen asleep a while before, Madi’s day of fun having already wiped her out.

They ate the cake for dinner in their pyjamas.  It was not exactly what Murphy had planned for dinner—there was part of a deer waiting to be cooked on the counter—but whatever.  Cake for dinner wasn’t exactly something to complain about.

“And now presents!” Madi declared, pushing her empty plate across the table and looking at them expectantly.

“What?” Clarke asked, raising a hand to her chest.  “You want presents?”

Madi rolled her eyes.  “It’s my _birthday_ ,” she reminded her, like there was any chance they could have forgotten at any point today.  “Birthdays need presents.”

“But we didn’t get you anything,” Murphy said, and Madi’s eyes widened considerably.  “You forgot to tell us it was going to be your birthday, so we only got you these.”

He finished his statement by pulling a bag out from under the table, Clarke doing the same, and Madi giggled.

“You tricked me,” she said, already pulling over the bags.

Madi squealed over the new sweater Clarke had knit her.  It was lumpy, their first real attempt at spinning wool from the sheep on the spinning wheel they’d found in one of the houses in the village, and one of the arms was longer than the other.  But Madi shoved it over her head on top of her pyjamas, declaring that she was never ever going to take it off.

Murphy’s gift went over similarly well.  He’d made her a knife, carving the handle from a piece of wood.  He’d inlayed a pattern of flowers, and Clarke had laughed at him when he’d said he was making a knife for Madi’s birthday.

“You’re giving our daughter a knife,” she’d explained through her giggles.  “For her seventh birthday.  I don’t think that’s what you’re supposed to give seven year olds.”

He’d rolled his eyes and she’d amended that, while it wasn’t exactly traditional, it was a very Murphy gift, which he appreciated.

Madi, it seemed, enjoyed the gift, showing it off to Seph.  From the way the baby grabbed at it, Murphy was glad he hadn’t pre-sharpened the blade.

“It’s got to meet it’s friends,” Madi said, placing it on the table.

Murphy glanced at Clarke, sharing a look of confusion, and was about to ask what she meant when what she meant was made clear as Madi pulled a knife from somewhere under her pyjamas.

And another.

And another.

Knife after knife emerged from god knows where, and Madi lined them up one after another along the table.

“There!” she said, placing down what was presumably the last knife.  “Now I have fourteen!”

“Of course she does,” Murphy said, shaking his head.  “Of course she has fourteen knives on her for no reason.”

“Madi, honey,” Clarke said, giving him a side glance as she leaned over the table.  “Why do you have fourteen knives under your pyjamas?”

Madi shrugged, already tucking the knives back into wherever she hid them.  “They get cold when it snows,” she said.  “They like to be warm.”

 

**689 APF**

Bellamy was staring down at Earth, trying to figure out whether he could see the patch of green where Clarke was or if he was just seeing things.  He’d dragged out a chair from the dining room and had been sitting there for a while.  There wasn’t much to do on the Ark other than fix things that weren’t broken yet and play card games or Dance Dance.

He glanced over his shoulder at the sound of a chair being dragged across the metal floor, nodding at Raven as she approached.  He returned his gaze to the Earth as she settled, his mind drifting back off again.

“Spit it out,” Raven said after a while, and Bellamy turned to look at her again.

“What?”

“Whatever you’re thinking about,” she said, poking his leg with her foot.  “You’re thinking really loud, so just say it.  Maybe I can help.”

Bellamy shook his head.  “It’s nothing.”

Raven shrugged and they went back to staring out the window in silence.

Her offer, though, must’ve been bouncing around in his mind, because eventually he found himself speaking, the words tumbling out of his mouth without his permission.

“Did Clarke and Murphy ever date on the Ark?”

He saw Raven turn to him from the corner of his eye, but didn’t look over at her.  Why had he said that?  He hadn’t even been thinking about that, had he?  Sure, it’d been in the back of his mind since they’d discussed who dated who so long ago, but he hadn’t been thinking about it now.

“What?”

Raven was giving him an out.  There was no doubt she had heard what he’d said and was just giving him a chance to take it back.

He contemplated it.  But it was already out there, and he had been wondering.  Raven hadn’t exactly known them on the Ark, but she’d known about them.  There was a chance she’d know and he could finally put the thought to rest.

“They were in med training together, weren’t they?” he asked, not really needing the clarification.  “Did they ever date?”

Raven turned further towards him.  “Why would I know?” she hedged, and Bellamy tried not to think about why she might be hedging.

“You’re their age, aren’t you?”

“No.”  She shook her head, laughing softly.  “I’m a year older than them, Bellamy.  I was too cool to know what was going on with younger kids.”

“Oh.”

Bellamy went back to staring out the window, trying to push away the thought.  It hadn’t worked so far, so there was no evidence that it would work now, but he had to try.  Jealousy was a dumb feeling and one he refused to feel.  What was he even jealous of?  The chance that Clarke and Murphy possibly might have dated a million years ago on the Ark?  That being together now, alone except for the kids they were raising, might rekindle whatever feelings might have been there?  That Clarke might decide that five years is too long to wait for him?

“They didn’t date.”

Raven’s words broke him from the spiral he was descending into, and his head snapped towards her.

She shrugged.  “Or, if they did, Finn didn’t know about it,” she amended.  “But that was the kind of thing Finn knew about.  I don’t know for sure either way, Bellamy.  Harper and Monty would probably be better to ask.”

Bellamy turned away again, what comfort Raven could offer doing a bit to settle his thoughts, and ran a hand through his hair.  “If I ask them, it becomes a thing.”

He could practically hear Raven rolling her eyes.  “I think it’s already a thing.”

“Yeah, but.”  Bellamy trailed off with a sigh, leaning forward and pressing his face into his hands.

Raven sighed too, and he felt her hand on his shoulder, rubbing it gently.

“Bellamy, Clarke’s in love with you,” she told him.  “You don’t have anything to worry about, okay?  She loves you and she’s waiting for you.”

He knew that.  He knew all of that.

And yet…

“But she doesn’t have to,” he said, lifting his head to look at Raven, her hand falling from his shoulder at his movement.  “We’re not together, Raven.  We slept together once.  _Once._   We kissed a few times.  That’s it.”  He pleaded with her with his eyes to understand.  “We never said anything.  We never even _talked_ about it, Raven.” 

He turned away again, burying his face in his hands once more.  He didn’t mean to drop all this on Raven right now.  Or ever, really.  But it was all bottling up, and Monty had been right.  He had to get over whatever jealousy or fear or whatever the fuck it was feeling before they went back to Earth.  Keeping it in didn’t seem to be doing anything, and now that he’d started talking, it was all just falling out.

“I always thought we’d have more time,” he said.  “That there’d be a chance to figure out what we are, but it never came.”  He sighed.  “I’m in love with her, and I think she’s in love with me, too, but I don’t know.  She’s not going to say it on the radio, and, even if she does, she doesn’t know I’m listening.  I can’t answer her.  I can’t tell her I’m in love with her and I want to be with her, that I want there to be an us.”

He looked back at Raven, catching the sympathy in her eyes.

“We’re not together,” he told her again, shaking his head.  “She doesn’t have to wait for me.  She can decide any day that she’s done waiting, that she wants something more now and not in a few years.  And it won’t even be a breakup or cheating or anything because we were never together.”

He didn’t want that.  He didn’t want him and Clarke to end before there was really even a him and Clarke.  He was an idiot.  He should’ve said something sooner, told her that night or any night before that.  He should’ve known that nothing was certain on Earth, that they were separated again and again and it was only a matter of time before they were apart for something like this five years.

He was jealous.  It was a dumb feeling and he refused to feel it, but it was still there.  He loved Clarke, and he couldn’t tell her.  He couldn’t do anything about it except worry and fret because they were so far apart and the fucking radio didn’t fucking work.

And now he was just throwing all of this on Raven, making it her problem.

She just looked at him, though, shaking her head and squeezing his shoulder.  She didn’t say anything, turning back to the view of Earth, and Bellamy sighed.

He didn’t feel better about any of it.  But he did feel a little lighter knowing that Raven was there, that even if she wasn’t offering any advice, she knew and she understood and she wasn’t going to blame him for being jealous or upset or any of the other not so great things he was feeling.

She was there, and, right now, that was enough.

 

**714 APF**

Clarke came out of the house, towelling her hair dry after bathing in the tub they had inside.  She couldn’t wait for warm weather to come back, to be able to just wash themselves in the lake instead of having to boil enough water to fill the tub.  Not to mention the cold and snow had just generally gotten old by now.

The girls were at the outside table, wrapped up in sweaters and playing some sort of game with cards and a ball, but Murphy wasn’t anywhere to be seen.

“Where’s Papa?” she asked the girls, and Seph ignored her while Madi shrugged.  “Murphy?”

“Over here!”

Clarke followed his voice, rounding the house.  He was crouched down by the edge of the forest, snow brushing his knees.

“What are you looking at?” Clarke asked, coming up behind him.

He turned to flash her a grin before looking back at the forest, pointing into the trees.  “That.”

Clarke followed his gaze, her eyes catching on a flash of yellow.  “A flower.”  It looked like a daffodil, almost—if Clarke remembered correctly from her Earth Skills classes, which, considering cheating off Wells was the only reason she’d passed, wasn’t all that likely—but much larger.  Murphy leaned forward, plucking it from it’s perch, and stood to tuck it behind her ear.

“I think spring might finally be coming,” he said, grinning at her.  She returned his smile with one of her own, her hand rising to secure the flower.

“Finally.”

* * *

  _In the meadow we can build a snowman_  
_And pretend that he's a circus clown_  
_We'll have lots of fun with Mr. Snowman  
_ _Until the other kids knock him down_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I'm gonna be optimistic here and say we're gonna aim for an update every other week. The next chapter is like half done since it was supposed to be part of this chapter, so it could be sooner, but two weeks is a safe bet.
> 
> Comments and kudos give me life! Come follow me on Tumblr at probably-voldemort!


	13. i'm almost me again (she's almost you)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey hey hey! Back at you again with a new chapter!
> 
> This chapter comes with the special honour of being the chapter that made this fic surpass 100k! Which is freaking insane, okay? We're at novel length, guys. That's ridiculous. Holy shit.
> 
> There's a lot of emotional angst in this chapter. Nothing that hasn't been touched on/talked about before, but just so you're aware. There's also a lot of fluff in this chapter, so hopefully it balances out well enough and you don't hate me too much.
> 
> Also: Now we have a bit more info on how Nightblood works in the show which is cool but doesn't work with how I'd decided it works in this fic. So here's some info on darling-verse nightblood:
> 
> It's random, usually. You don't need to have a Nightblood ancestor to get it. That being said, if someone who has Nightblood has a baby (ie Clarke getting the Nightblood solution while pregnant with Seph) there is a really high chance the baby will also have Nightblood. This works whether the Nightblood parent is the father or the mother. If both parents are Nightblood, it's almost guaranteed that the baby will also have Nightblood. I don't know a lot about blood, but I'm thinking it works like blood types here mostly.
> 
> Anyway, not super important but I thought I'd point it out.
> 
> Also to note: This chapter is also a part of my I'm Feeling 22 Birthday Fic Celebration thing leading up to my birthday next week! 
> 
> anonymous said: happy birthday to you! happy birthday to you! happy birthday dear kee! happy birthday to you! am i allowed to prompt the next chapter of darling hold me in your arms? because i want to prompt that
> 
> So someone requested the next chapter of this as their prompt, which is both hilarious and flattering lol, so now this fic is included in that series. So that's a fun time.
> 
> Also I'm sorry for the relative lack of Spapcekru in this chapter. This chapter and the last one were supposed to be the same chapter and most of my Spacekru scenes ended up in the first part. There'll be more Spacekru in the next couple.
> 
> Anyway, please enjoy!

_I came in from the outside_  
_Burnt out from a joyride_  
_She likes to roll here in my ashes anyway_  

* * *

  **722 APF**

The coming of spring after the second apocalypse was just as annoying as it was before.  The snow didn’t just disappear, because that would be too easy.  If the few winters and springs Murphy had experienced before stayed true, they’d have this disgusting half-melted slush for a while still.

The slush was terrible, and having two small children in the slush was even worse.  He and Clarke at least tried to keep the slush off them.  Madi and Seph, however, seemed to have made it their life mission to get as much slush on them as they possibly could, and then complain—or just scream, in Seph’s case—when they ended up completely soaked.

It was a vicious cycle, a cycle Murphy was pretty sure was some sort of cosmic karma to make up for everything he’d ever done.

But, whatever cosmic or uncosmic reasons behind it, the facts still remained.  There was slush, and his children had made it their mission in life to make sure they were covered in it at all times.

Which is why he wasn’t surprised when Seph started screaming, or by the sigh that came from Clarke in response.

“Doctor-Persephone Dynamo Wildcat Blake-Griffin,” she tutted, picking up the dripping toddler.  “What are we gonna do with you?”

Madi’s head snapped up from the fish she was helping Murphy clean.  “What did you call her?”

“Doctor-Persephone Dynamo Wildcat Blake-Griffin,” Murphy repeated, and Madi’s frown turned to him.  Why had they given the baby such a long name?  It was really a mouthful.

“Why?”

“It’s her whole name,” Clarke said, and Murphy realized that maybe this was the first time Madi had ever heard it.  “We just call her Seph cause it’s easier.”

“Oh.”  Madi’s eyes turned back to the fish, and Murphy met Clarke’s over her head and shrugged.

“Just like your mom’s name is Clarke Griffin,” he said, and Madi was looking at him again.  “And mine’s John Murphy.”

Madi stared at him a moment longer before wrinkling her nose and laughing.  “No, it’s not.”

Murphy gasped, mock offended, and Clarke joined Madi in laughing.  Seph had stopped screaming for now, chewing on a stick instead.  It was probably not something she should be chewing on, really, but exposure to germs meant a better immune system or something, right?  And, anyway, he’d take Seph with a cold from chewing on a stick later if it meant she wasn’t screaming right now.

“Yes, it is,” he insisted, and Clarke leaned over to pat his arm.

“Let it go, John,” she said, and he rolled his eyes.

“What’s mine?” Madi wanted to know.

Murphy shrugged.  “Do you remember yours from before?”  Madi shook her head, and he nodded.  “Okay.  You can be Madi Griffin-Murphy, if you want.”

Madi stared between them for a few long moments.  “Why?”

“Cause Griffin is my last name and Murphy is his,” Clarke said, smiling softly at Madi.  “So if you have them both, everybody will know you’re part of our family.”

Their daughter didn’t say anything, turning back to the fish.  Clarke caught his eye and shrugged.  They continued cleaning the fish in silence for a while, and Murphy wondered why his heart was in his throat at the thought of Madi potentially rejecting being part of their family by not wanting their last names.

It was silly, really.  She was part of their family whether she had their names or not.  She’d started calling them Mommy and Papa on her own.  She slept in their house and considered herself their daughter and a sister to Seph.  She was their family.  They were hers.  It wasn’t even like there was anyone around to know whether she had their last names or not.

But feelings were dumb and made no sense ever, and Murphy had been having way too many of them lately.

“How come Seph doesn’t have a Murphy?”

See?  Case in point.  Those words should not have made him stop breathing, his heart stop beating.  He should not have been occasionally thinking about it already.  There shouldn’t have been a pit of jealousy in his stomach at the thought of his daughter not having his last name, when he was the one raising her, not Bellamy.

“Cause she has her daddy’s last name,” he told Madi, not looking up from his fish.  “Blake.”

“But you’re her papa.” 

He could feel Madi’s eyes on him.  Clarke’s too, probably, which was why he couldn’t look up.  Not until he stopped feeling things again, or felt something that wasn’t a dumb emotion he shouldn’t be having.  He tried to think of something to say, something that would make Madi see why Seph didn’t have his last name and that it didn’t bother him, but Clarke beat him to the punch.

“You’re right, Madi,” she said, and Murphy was pretty sure his heart stopped again.  “He is her papa.  She should have a Murphy, if it’s alright with him.”

He looked up then, first at Madi’s big brown eyes staring up at him and then at Clarke.  There was a soft smile on her face, one that told him she knew what he was thinking and that, before Praimfaya, he would’ve met with a sarcastic quip or a scathing remark to push her further away.  She was too close.  People who were close were people you could lose.

But Murphy was way past that point now.  He was pretty sure there was nothing he could do now that would push Clarke far enough away.  And he was mostly okay with that.

He forced himself to breathe, a smile to stretch across his face.  He couldn’t say anything, couldn’t tell her how much that meant to him, that she considered this little family they had as important as he did.  But he managed a nod, and he was pretty sure she understood what all was encompassed in it.

“Okay,” she said, giving him another little smile before turning to Seph, lifting her in front of her face.  “Doctor-Persephone Dynamo Wildcat Blake-Griffin-Murphy it is.”

It was way too long a name, was what it really was, but Murphy didn’t really care.  So what if they had to spend half a century yelling her name when she was in trouble?

“And Madi Griffin-Murphy,” Madi said,  turning the topic back to herself.  She made a face.  “Seph’s is longer.”

Murphy laughed.  “That’s cause she has lots of middle names.”

“I want lots of middle names.”  Madi stabbed her knife into the fish, dropping it into the bucket without finishing it.  “Madi Snowmonster Fish Tree Dinosaur Troy Bolton Moose Elephant Griffin-Murphy.”

“Fantastic,” Clarke said, catching Murphy’s eye so they could share a grin.  “Is that a final decision?”

Madi shook her head.  “No,” she said.  “I might change it later.”

 

**730 APF**

Murphy had gotten up early.  Before the rooster and before Madi and Seph crawled into their bed.  Clarke stirred as he was moving around the room, clearly trying to be as quiet as possible as he dressed.  She listened as he threw a few logs on the fire before leaving, heard the front door close quietly behind him.

Clarke wanted to follow him.  She knew why he was leaving, what day it was and what that meant.  But she couldn’t.  The girls were still asleep and someone had to be here when they woke up.

But she worried.  She knew what he was like on the first anniversary of Praimfaya, how hard it hit him.  She didn’t want him to be alone right now.

The girls came in not long after, and it was one of the mornings where they wanted to jump on the bed instead of cuddle.

“Where’s Papa?” Madi asked, jumping up and down.

“Papa,” Seph echoed, holding her arms out to the sides and bouncing.

“Papa went for a walk,” Clarke told them, peeling back the warm covers and crawling out of bed.  “Let’s go get breakfast.”

She chatted with the girls as they ate, putting aside some oatmeal to take to Murphy.  He’d left too quickly to have eaten anything.

Breakfast finished, she settled the girls in the living room with some toys and colouring and games, and instructed them to stay inside until she got back as she pulled on her boots and jacket.

*********

Murphy was lying on a rock.

It was cold against his back, the remains of the slush seeping through his clothes.  He’d stopped shivering a while ago, which was bad, but he couldn’t bring himself to move.

Two years.

It’d been two years since he lost Emori, since he lost Max.

Two years.

And he’d barely known her for one.

He was trying not to think about it, think about her, as he lay on his rock.  It overlooked the lake, still half-frozen from the cold, but he wasn’t looking at it.  Instead, he was on his back, staring up at the sky and vaguely wondering whether the dark clouds would bring rain this time or just more snow.

He heard Clarke before he saw her.  He knew she’d be coming at some point.  Maybe not as soon as she realized he was gone, but definitely as soon as the girls would be good on their own for a while.

He knew she’d be coming after him, but he still left.  He wasn’t sure why he had.  Maybe he was still trying to pretend he never felt anything.  Maybe he just didn’t want the girls to see whatever amount of mess today was going to make him.

Clarke didn’t say anything when she found him, just joining him on the rock and lying down next to him, staring up at the sky and waiting for him to make the first move.

He was pretty sure the cold of the rock and the slush had frozen his heart with the rest of him.  He wasn’t feeling much of anything at the moment, nothing but numbness.

Emori was dead, had been dead for two years now, and he wasn’t feeling anything.

It wasn’t until Clarke was shivering hard enough that he could feel it even across the small distance separating them that he made himself speak.

“It’s been two years.”

Clarke’s hands came up in the corner of his eye, rubbing at her arms.  “I know.”

“It’s been two years,” he said again, watching the clouds swirl above them.  “That’s longer than I knew her.”

Clarke didn’t say anything to that, didn’t tell him it was okay, that it would get better.  It wasn’t okay, they both knew that, but they both also knew that it would get better.  In theory.  Clarke had gotten better after Finn, after Lexa.  Bellamy wasn’t dead, but it’d been two years since she’d seen him, too.  It was going to get better for him, too.

Maybe it already had started to.

When he thought of Emori, he was sad.  He was hurt and he was angry and he was sad.  But it was like the emotions had been dulled since the last anniversary.  They were there, they were painful, but they weren’t as bad as they’d been.

And it wasn’t like he only thought about her on the anniversary, either.  He thought about her, at least a little bit, most days.  After he’d lost her, thinking of her had felt like being stabbed.  A sharp pain in his chest and tears in his eyes any time she so much as crossed his mind.

He’d thought of her a few days ago, remembered their days of roaming the highways of the Grounder world and robbing people blind.  He’d smiled at the memory, sharp pain only a dull ache.

It was getting better.

Maybe that was what made today feel so crappy, like letting himself move on, stop dying like she had with every thought of her, was the same as forgetting her, forgetting everything she’d been to him, everything she’d meant, everything they’d shared.

He’d loved her.  He’d lost her.  It would always hurt, but was it bad that it didn’t hurt quite as much?

“I brought you breakfast,” Clarke told him after a while, after the silence had stretched on long enough that Murphy had almost forgotten she was there.  “I know you might not want to, but you should eat something.”

He knew she was right.  He knew he should eat, and a lump formed in his throat at the thought that she cared about him enough to make sure he did.  Maybe his heart hadn’t completely frozen over yet.  Maybe that wasn’t a bad thing.

“She’s dead,” he said, which wasn’t what he’d been meaning to say.  Clarke’s head turned towards him, but he still stared up at the sky.  “She’s dead, and that’s not going to change.  I should—I should try to move on, right?”  He rolled his head to look at Clarke, his eyes pleading with her to make this impossible decision for him.  “I should try?”

Clarke was quiet for a while, chewing on her bottom lip.

“I don’t know,” she finally said.  “I don’t know when you’re supposed to move on.  I don’t know how you’re supposed to do this normally.”

Murphy rolled his head back to the sky, closing his eyes.  “You’ve done this before,” he reminded her.  “You should know.  You should be able to tell me how to do this.”

Clarke sighed.  “We were at war,” she pointed out.  “Every time I’ve done this, we were at war.  I didn't love Wells the same way, but he was my best friend.  I loved him.  But we were fighting the Grounders then and everyone was dying and I had to move on.  And when my dad was floated, I got locked in solitary, which is definitely not how you should grieve.  But all the other times... I had to move on right away or people would die.  I don’t know how else you’re supposed to do it.”

Murphy snorted.  “Maybe we should have a war.”

“How would that even work?” He could hear the smile in Clarke’s words, the way she was trying to hold back her laughter.  “Who would we fight?  The kids?”

“Madi did eat the last of the cookies,” Murphy mused, and Clarke did laugh at that.

He was grinning, he was happy, and Emori wasn’t there.  She was dead, and he was happy.

He was pretty sure that thought should’ve hurt more than it did.

Clarke seemed to sense the shift in his mood, her laughter fading off.

“I think you have to do what feels right,” she said.  “If it feels like it’s time to try to move on, you should try.  I don’t think it’ll be easy, but you have to do it at some point.  Emori would want you to be happy, even if she’s not here to be happy with you.  And I think—”

She cut herself off, and Murphy turned to look at her then.  She was chewing on her lip again, her brows scrunched together like she was trying to decide whether she should say whatever it was she wanted to.

“You think what?” Murphy asked.  He figured it was better to get whatever this was out now.  Anything that could help was better off being said.

“I think,” Clarke repeated slowly, her eyes studying his face.  “I think you might’ve already started moving on, whether you realize it or not.”

Murphy watched her for a few more moments before turning back to the sky and thinking over what she’d said.

Maybe he was already moving on.  He wasn’t alone dealing with this, not like he’d been alone after his parents died.  The only time he’d had to deal with this on his own had been when Clarke was in her coma, and he’d mostly been ignoring it then, focusing on keeping Clarke alive at least long enough so that he wouldn’t have to die alone.

He had Clarke, and then they had Seph and now they had Madi, too.  He couldn’t just wallow in his grief, not when he had a family, not when he had kids to take care of.

Maybe he’d started moving on when he’d decided that he couldn’t leave Clarke alone.  He didn’t want to die alone, but that didn’t mean he wanted to die at all.  Maybe when they’d decided they were doing this together, he’d subconsciously decided that he needed to be here for whatever this is, that he couldn’t be stuck in the past with a love that was gone, that he needed to be _here_ , in the present.

Maybe he’d been moving on for a while.  Thinking of Emori didn’t hurt as much as it had.  It’d always hurt, he knew, the way thinking of his dad and of his mom, before she let the alcohol take her before the cancer could, hurt.  He couldn’t save any of them, not his parents not Emori, but this time he wasn’t alone.  He couldn’t burn down anyone’s house to get back at them for Emori’s death.  He wasn’t locked up, alone, so alone, for it.  He wasn’t on a countdown to his birthday, to the day he’d be floated alone, always alone, sent out into space to die for not knowing how to grieve in a system that was fucked up and had failed him.  When they’d asked him how he’d like to die that day, on his eighteenth birthday, he’d chosen to not be alone.

He hadn’t been alone, and he hadn’t died, and he wasn’t alone now.  He had Clarke and his daughters, and he wasn’t alone.

Emori had died alone.  He hadn’t been able to get to her in time.  And that would always eat at him, that he hadn’t been there to hold her while she died, make sure she knew she wasn’t alone.

But it had been two years.  Two fucking years of dealing with her being gone, with never being able to see her again or hold her or tell her he loved her.

And he did.  He loved her, even now, even after she’d been gone longer than she’d known him.   He’d always love her.

But he couldn’t wallow in losing her.  He couldn’t stay stuck there forever, as the person who’d lost yet another person he loved, as the person who lost everyone he loved.  He had Clarke and Seph and Madi, and they needed him to be okay with his past, needed him to focus on the present and the future.  They needed him to try to move on, to try to be better.

(He refused to think about how he loved them, Seph and Madi and Clarke.  He didn’t love Clarke the same way he loved Emori, but it didn’t matter.  He loved the three of them, just like he’d loved his parents and Emori and Max.  He loved them, and that put them in danger, and he didn’t want to deal with that, so he didn’t think about it.)

And, if he was being honest with himself, which he wasn’t quite sure if he was ready to be quite yet, Clarke might be right.  He was happy with her and their kids.  He was letting himself be happy and plan for the future, for his future with them.  He was moving on, probably had been for a while.  Emori had died, and it was horrible, but he was dealing with it and he was moving on, and he was already at a much better place than he had been.

Emori would want him to be happy.  And he was happy.  He was.  He was so happy most of the time that he was waiting for the other shoe to drop, for a war or another apocalypse or _something_ to fall out of the sky and ruin it.  Because John Murphy wasn’t allowed to be this happy.

But he was.

He was moving on and he was happy, and Emori would want that for him, even if she wasn’t here to see it.

He didn’t know how long they’d been laying there in silence before Clarke’s entire body shuddered with the shiver that went through her.

“Let’s go back,” he said, sitting up.  His muscles ached as he moved, frozen stiff, and he thought that maybe he might’ve been laying there for too long.  “You’re cold.”

“I’m okay,” Clarke told him through chattering teeth.  “We can stay longer if you need to.”

Murphy snorted at that.  “We’re going to get hypothermia,” he pointed out, leaving out the part that he already couldn’t feel most of his body.  “I’d rather not lose any body parts today.”

“Okay, yeah,” Clarke agreed, returning his smile and pulling herself to her feet.  “Me neither.”

Back at the house, they’d change into warm dry clothes and share a blanket and their warmth on the couch as Madi directed herself and Seph and their toys in a play that was vaguely based on her knowledge of High School Musical, laughing at their children as they ignored the pain of feeling returning to their limbs. 

If Murphy’s nightmares returned that night, not just of losing Emori and Max but of losing Clarke and Madi and Seph, too, of being alone in this world with the bodies everyone he’d ever loved scattered around him, that was a problem for later.  And, when Clarke held him, his face pressed into her shoulder to muffle the sobs so he wouldn’t wake the girls, he’d push down the urge to push her away, to push them all away, so that when he inevitably lost them, he could pretend it didn’t hurt.

He wasn’t completely better.  He didn’t know if he could ever be completely back to the way he was before he started losing people, before the universe decided to say a big _fuck you, John Murphy_ , but he was working on it.  He was working on moving on, on being happy and not afraid.

And, if he really thought about it, he was already doing a pretty good job.

 

**755 APF**

“Finally!” Madi yelled, opening the door and dropping out of the rover onto the sand.

Clarke rolled her eyes, climbing out at a much more reasonable pace.  They hadn’t even been in the rover that long.  Two days was more than she’d anticipated—they had to stop for pee breaks for Madi a lot, and Seph had recently decided that she needed to pee whenever Madi needed to pee which was great for potty training but less great when they wanted to do things quickly—but it was still a breeze compared to their first trip across the desert wasteland that was the world.

“Shit,” Murphy breathed, joining her at the front of the rover with a sleeping Seph in his arms.  His eyes scanned over the remains of Polis, at the piles of rubble and half-buried debris.  “I didn’t think it was this bad.”

Clarke glanced at him, ready to point out that he knew it was this bad, that they’d been there before, when she remembered the last time they were here.  How Murphy was already barely conscious.  How they’d been out of food and almost out of water.  How the bunker had been their last hope, their only chance of survival.  How she’d screamed and sobbed when she found it buried, clawing at the rubble blocking them from her mom, from their next meal, from safety and survival, until her hands were stained black with her blood and she’d collapsed from exhaustion.

She shook off the memories of this place, of how horrible and terrifying that time of their lives had been.

“Yeah,” she agreed, starting off into the rubble to follow Madi.  “It’s gonna take a lot of digging.”

“Where’re all the people?” Madi asked when they finally caught up to her.  She was standing on what had maybe once been a wall, staring out over the fallen city.  “Where’s Gran and Auntie O and Uncle Miller and everybody else?”

“They’re under the ground,” Murphy told her, glancing around.  “We told you that.  We have to dig them out.”

“Oh yeah.”  Madi hopped off the piece of wall, her hands on her hips.  “Where?”

“Over here,” Clarke said, leading them in the right direction.

There was even more of the tower piled over the entrance to the bunker than she remembered.  It was going to take ages to dig them out.  Years, even.

But it wasn’t like they didn’t have time.  It was just under three years before it would be safe for them to come out, anyway, so it was okay if it’d take that long to dig them out.  It wasn’t like they were in a hurry.  They could afford to come down every few weeks and spend some time moving debris.  If anything, it gave them a change of scenery.

“Help me, Mommy,” Madi called, and Clarke moved to help her move a piece of metal.

They tossed it onto another pile and Madi grinned, brushing her hands together to wipe off the dirt.

“There!” she said, nodding in satisfaction.  “We’re already almost done.”

Clarke laughed, but agreed.  If they stuck to that kind of thinking, it’d go by that much faster.

*********

Clarke rested her head on Murphy’s shoulder, her eyes fighting to stay open as she stared into the fire.  Seph was asleep in her lap, and Madi on Murphy’s other side, leaning against him.  She could tell Murphy was still awake only by the way his fingers were tracing along her arm.

She could feel the bandage on his hand, from where a particularly sharp piece of debris had sliced it open earlier in the day, and considered sitting up so she could change the bandage and make sure the stitches were holding up.  But that seemed like a lot of work when all she wanted was to curl up in bed and sleep for the rest of the week they planned on staying here, and, anyway, Murphy had about as much medical experience as she did.  He’d tell her if he thought something was wrong.

Instead, she made herself sit up, blinking heavily at the darkness that came when she looked away from the fire.

“Bed?” she asked, and Murphy’s grin glinted in the firelight.

“Fuck yes.”

Murphy put out the fire and then helped her carry the kids into the rover, tucking them under the blankets they’d filled it with.

They’d moved a lot of debris that day, so much that Clarke’s entire body ached.  But, in the grand scheme of how much they had to move to get to the bunker door, it really hadn’t made a difference.  It was going to take so fucking long to dig this out, and Clarke was already almost ready to give up.

But every time she considered, she thought of her mother, wondered what the look on her face would be when she realized she had grandchildren.  Or she thought of Octavia or Miller or the hundreds of other faces of people who might or might not be in the bunker.

She thought of them, the people trapped inside, the people who didn’t get to feel the sun every day, who didn’t get to experience the snow or the rain, who spent their days locked in the dark and not out in the world, and she knew there was no way she’d ever give up.  Not until the door was clear and the bunker could open.

If it took them years, so be it.

Murphy closed the rover’s door, and Clarke followed him under the blankets, curling up around their daughters.

She was asleep before her head hit the pillow.

 

**773 APF**

“Papa, look at my bugs!”

Madi held the container under his nose, and Murphy didn’t have a choice but to look away from the stew he was making to observe her bugs.

Bugs were gross.  He really didn’t know why Madi and Seph were so engrossed by them.  They were disgusting.  He was pretty sure bugs were supposed to be small, or had been before the first apocalypse, at least, but radiation and evolution and whatever other shit had made some of them huge.  There was a worm in Madi’s container that was thicker than his thumb.

Disgusting.

“Your bugs are super cool,” he told her.  Who was he to shit on his daughters’ interests, as gross as they may be?  “But bugs aren’t allowed near food, remember.”

Madi rolled her eyes, and sat down on the ground, pulling out something fat and purple with way too many legs and even more eyes and letting it crawl on her arm.  Murphy repressed a shudder and turned back to dinner.

Clarke came over a few minutes later, the plans she’d been drawing up held out in front of her.  “What do you think?”

There had been seeds in the lab, for wheat and vegetables and fruit and everything they’d need to grow their own food.  They were still a few weeks away from planting, but they were working on figuring out where to put them.  At this point, their house by the lake was turning into a full on farm, with all the animals they already had and now the crops they were going to be producing, too.

“It looks great,” he told her, scanning the layout she had for their garden.  “Hopefully we don’t kill them all.”

Clarke snorted and rolled her eyes, dropping the paper to her side.  “Hey,” she said.  “One of us did pass Earth Skills.”

“Cheating doesn’t count,” Murphy pointed out.  He turned back to stir the pot, finding Madi already stirring.  “Are you helping?”

Madi nodded, the grin on her face a little too wide, but Murphy wasn’t going to complain.  If she wanted to help stir the stew, she could help stir the stew.

“I think it’s done,” she said, jumping away from the fire.  The spoon almost dropped in the dirt, but Murphy managed to catch it.

They dished up and sat down at the outside table, Seph wearing half her portion within a minute of starting to eat.

Clarke was talking about the garden, how they’d also plant the flower seeds they’d found and finally get around to building the swing and the window boxes.  Murphy let her words wash over him, adding some input whenever it was necessary or he thought of something snarky to say.

She was talking about eggplants, wondering whether they’d taste more like eggs or plants and why were they called eggplants in the first place, and he was about to interject with a comment about how he had an eggplant she could try right now if she really wanted to know what they taste like—a comment which definitely would’ve resulted in getting slapped and/or some of her food thrown at him, but that was a sacrifice he was willing to make—when he looked down at his bowl of stew and saw it.

It was moving.

Something in his stew was moving.

Clarke’s words drifted into background noise as he fished out the moving thing from his stew, lifting it on his spoon.

The big purple bug with too many legs stared at him with its too many eyes.

He screamed, throwing his spoon across the table.  Madi started laughing, already knowing her prank had worked, and Clarke stared at him like he was losing it.

“What the fuck?” she asked, and Murphy scowled at Madi.

“Where are your bugs?” he demanded, and Madi laughed harder.

“I lost them,” she told him, grinning widely.

“You lost them where?”

Madi shrugged.  “In the stew maybe.”

"Madi Snowmonster Fish Tree Dinosaur Troy Bolton Moose Elephant Griffin-Murphy."  Clarke dropped her spoon into her bowl, turning to stare at their daughter with wide eyes.  “Tell me you did not but your bugs in our stew.”

Madi shrugged again, giggling.  “Just some of them,” she said.  “The purple ones like the hot.”

“Of course they do.”  Murphy pushed his bowl away, standing up.  “You can finish eating your bug stew, Madi.  I’m going to get leftovers for me and your mom.”

“It was just a joke,” Madi said, taking another spoonful of stew.  There was a worm hanging off it, one of the big fat ones, and she slurped it up like a noodle.  Murphy shuddered.  “They’re kinda yummy.”

Clarke stared at her for a second longer before turning to Murphy.  “We have fish from last night, right?”

He nodded, sending another horrified look at the ruined stew before heading inside to find the leftovers.

“Prank the food again, and you don’t get anymore food,” he told Madi over his shoulder, and could practically hear her roll her eyes.  “Ever.”

“Fine, Papa,” she groaned.  “But there might maybe be some sticks in the dessert.”

 

**785 APF**

Echo was driving everyone crazy.

It had started a couple of months back, when Bellamy was jogging around the ring.  He’d passed by her room and she’d jumped out, landing on his back and tackling him to the ground.  She’d pinned him in seconds, a dull metal stick pressed against his neck.

“You’re dead,” she’d declared, climbing off him.  “You need to be more prepared.”

Before he could warn the others, she’d already taken all of them out, too.

From then, it had become a sort of routine.  If anyone was alone on the Ark, they ran the risk of a surprise attack from Echo.  Actually, being in a pair hadn’t even saved Harper and Monty one night, as Echo had taken them both out before they’d even realized what had happened.

Raven, it seemed, was the first to find the answer to at least decreasing the frequency of the attacks on herself, by beating Echo about two weeks in.  Raven refused to share her technique, but by the blush on her face when Bellamy had questioned her, he had a few ideas.  Ideas that, even though he and Clarke weren’t actually together, he wasn’t feeling the need to test out himself.

So he watched his back.  He was tense, everyone was tense, and, honestly, he was pretty sure Echo was doing this less to get them prepared just in case, as she claimed, and more for the fun of making them paranoid.

He was watching his back now, as he walked down through the ring to the bathroom, a change of clothes and a towel draped over his shoulder.  It was only because Echo hadn’t quite adapted to walking on metal rather than earth that he was able to catch her footsteps, and he didn’t slow down.  He’d done that once before, and Echo had caught on that he’d heard her and had still beaten him.

So he kept walking, until Echo’s footsteps were right behind him, and then he spun and attacked first, sweeping his leg out at hers.

She stumbled but didn’t fall, a grin stretching out on her face as she rounded for another attack.

It was a fight this time, rather than Echo immediately pressing his face against the closest surface and her fake sword against his throat.  He got her sword from her, throwing it across the hall as he dodged and countered blows.

And then a miracle happened.

Echo’s foot caught on his fallen towel and she slipped.

Bellamy went down with her, pressing her against the floor, and his hands went to her neck.

“You’re dead,” he told her, panting, and then stood up, holding out a hand.

“And you’re finally getting there.”  She grinned at him, letting him tug her to her feet.  “Go shower.  You smell.”

 

**798 APF**

Clarke sat back on her heels, wiping a hand across her forehead and no doubt smearing dirt across it.

Gardening was a lot of work, apparently.  Who knew sticking seeds into dirt would take so much effort?

They had cleared a bunch of grass and wildflowers from a patch of mostly-flat ground the day before, behind the half-built chicken-goat-sheep-duck coop.  Clarke still wasn’t sure whether it was big enough, but they’d find out once things started to grow.  There was always more room to make it bigger if they needed to.

Madi and Seph were both very into gardening.  Or, rather, Madi was into digging holes and finding bugs and throwing them at Murphy, and Seph was into eating dirt by the handful.  Either way, their help was very appreciated.

Murphy was grumbling and digging through his hair for a particularly sticky bug, and Clarke crossed the garden to help.

“I feel like we’re monkeys,” he told her as she picked through his hair.  “Didn’t monkeys used to eat each other’s hair bugs?”

“I’m not eating your hair bugs.”  Clarke laughed, making a face.  “That’s disgusting.”

She found the bug, an ugly blue thing that probably had teeth and wanted to eat them, and worked on extracting it from his hair.

“Got it!” She grinned triumphantly, the sticky bug covered in clumps of Murphy’s hair gripped between her fingers.  She dropped it in her hand, and Murphy shuddered, flicking it off into the dirt.

She stood back up, looking out across the yard.  Their home was really coming along.  They had their house, complete now with boxes under the windows, filled with dirt and seeds that would soon grow into flowers.  They had the little house, mostly just storage right now, with its own flower boxes.  The chicken-goat-sheep-duck coop was partially built, though Madi was already complaining about the animals not living in the house with them when it wasn’t winter.  They had the swings built, sitting on the ground beneath the tree they’d be hanging in soon.

This was their home.

They were on the ground and there was peace and they had a home and a farm, and their kids were going to grow up knowing an Earth that didn’t mean death.

There were too many bugs that were too big and gross, but that was something they could deal with.  Bugs weren’t the end of the world.

Something hit Clarke right in the nose, and she pulled something creepy and orange and slimy off her face as Madi giggled.

Scratch that.  Bugs just might be the end of the world.

 

**814 APF**

He would’ve been two.

If Emori hadn’t died, if she’d managed to survive Praimfaya, even if she was up in space and Murphy was still down on the ground with Clarke, Max would’ve been two.

Maybe not today.  Maybe a few days or weeks earlier or later than today, because the chances of a baby being born on their due date, even a due date made by someone with half a doctorate who’d never figured out a due date on an actual living person and not a bunch of old ultrasound pictures where the right answer was in the back of the textbook, weren’t very high.

But he would’ve been two around now.  He would’ve had a two year old.

If Emori had somehow survived on the ground with them, Max would’ve been eating dirt with Seph, learning how to talk.  He would’ve been running around in the dirt and throwing fits when something didn’t go his way.

But he never got any of that.

Murphy was trying to move on from Emori’s death.  He really was, and he thought he was doing good at it.  He missed her.  Fuck, he missed her.  But he was dealing with her being gone and was trying to move on.

But Max.  Max was another thing altogether.

How do you move on from the death of a child, even one you never got to meet?

He wasn’t sure whether having Seph made things easier or harder.  On the one hand, she was amazing and he loved her and he’d never wish her away ever.

But on the other hand, every time Seph met another milestone, learned a new word, smiled at him and called him Papa, everything she did was a reminder of everything Max never got the chance to do and never would.

The day had gone by slowly, and had hit him harder than he’d expected it to.  Maybe because Max’s last birthday he’d been dying, too, slowly starving to death while they were stuck in that sandstorm.  Maybe last year hadn’t hit him as hard because he’d been so sure he’d be seeing Max and Emori soon, in whatever place people went to after they died.

He was sitting on the table, staring out at the lake.  Clarke was inside putting Seph down for a nap, and Madi was swimming, splashing about in the shallows of the lake.

He hadn’t cried, not yet.  Crying was for tonight when he and Clarke were alone and the girls wouldn’t see.  He could hold it together until then.

“You okay?”

He didn’t look away from the lake, but felt Clarke settle next to him.  “No.”

Clarke leaned against him, a testament to how well they knew each other now.  He knew she wanted to hold his hand or hug him or something more, but they both knew that that would be it, the end of the strength he was using to hold everything in, and he didn’t want that right now.

“He would’ve been amazing,” she told him, and Murphy sighed.

“He would’ve been a pain in our asses,” he countered, turning so he could give her a wry smile.  “Any kid of mine would make Seph and Madi look like a piece of cake.”

“You said it, not me.”  Clarke grinned back, her own tinged with just as much sadness as his, and bumped their shoulders together.  Murphy laughed softly, bumping her in return.

Madi called them down to the water, wanting someone to swim with her, and Murphy waved Clarke on, saying he’d stay to listen for Seph waking up.

*********

He was sitting on the couch that night with Clarke, waiting for Madi and Seph to come out with their choices for bedtime stories, and he pulled the picture from his pocket.  It was crumpled, the pencil Clarke had used rubbed away in the creases, but he could still see it, the lines and curves of the ultrasound of his son.

“I can make a new one,” Clarke offered, and he nodded, his fingers tracing across Max’s face.

Madi jumped onto the couch, landing half on top of both of them, and Seph wiggled up Clarke’s leg.  “Is that a baby?”

“What book do you have?” Clarke asked quickly, trying to sidestep the conversation.

Murphy put a hand on her knee, shaking his head.  “It’s okay,” he told her.  He tugged Madi down, more into his lap than across his chest, and held out the sketch.  “Before Praimfaya, I had a girlfriend named Emori.”

“A girlfriend?” Madi repeated, turning to wrinkle her nose at him.  “Like Troy and Gabriella?”

“Yeah,” he agreed, smiling at her.  “Like Troy and Gabriella.  Emori was my girlfriend, and I loved her so much.  And a little bit before Praimfaya, we found out she was pregnant, that there was a baby growing inside her belly.”

“Baby?” Seph asked, pointing at the picture.

“Yeah.”  Murphy brushed a thumb over Max’s face.  “This baby.  And then Praimfaya came, and Emori died.”

“Like my noman and my brother,” Madi said softly.  “What about the baby?”

“Well, the baby was still growing inside Emori,” Murphy said.  His voice had thickened, and he hoped he could hold off the tears through the rest of the story, just a little bit longer until the girls were in bed.  “He was too little to be born, so he couldn’t survive outside her.  So when Emori died, he died too.”

“Oh.”  Madi stared down at the picture, her fingers following Murphy’s in their tracing of Max’s face.  “What’s his name?”

“His name was Max.”

“Hi Max,” she whispered, leaning in towards the picture.  “I’m your big sister Madi, and I love you.  I have another baby brother, too, but I don’t remember his name.  You can find him, though, in the place with the dead people.  He can be your brother, too.”

Murphy could feel the tears coming now and closed his eyes in the hopes to keep them in.  He felt Clarke squeeze his arm.

“Okay,” she said softly.  “What story do you want tonight?”

Murphy made it through bedtime stories.  He made it through pyjamas and teeth brushing.  He made it through kissing his daughters goodnight, through Madi wanting to give Max a goodnight kiss.

He made it through changing into his own pyjamas and Clarke into hers.  He made it until they were in bed, until Clarke was looking like him like he was going to fucking break.  He opened his mouth to tell her to stop, that he was okay, that he wasn’t going to fall apart, but what came out instead was a sob.  It was for the best, really, because he would’ve proven himself a liar.

Clarke’s arms were around him in an instant, holding him against her as he broke.

 

**833 APF**

“Mommy, can you help?”

Clarke was setting the table around Madi, who was working on the practice from Murphy’s latest math lesson, while Murphy got dinner ready and Seph poked at bugs with a stick.

“Sure,” Clarke said, sinking onto the bench beside Madi.  “What’re you working on?”

Madi slid the paper over to her, and Clarke looked down at the paper.

“Is this calculus?” she asked, frowning at the questions.  She’d been expecting basic addition or subtraction.  Maybe some multiplication.  Actual math that seven year olds learned.  Not fucking calculus.

"Yup," Madi confirmed, chewing on the end of her pencil.  “Just numbers was too easy, so Papa said we can add letters and now it’s super fun.”

Calculus wasn’t exactly what Clarke would call fun, but she wasn’t about to argue with Madi about that.  And, looking over the questions Madi had already answered, she was apparently good at calculus.

Madi showed her the question she was stuck on, and Clarke sent her brain back to high school and calculus and managed to walk her through it until she picked it up again, and then Murphy was calling that dinner was ready.

“Spaghetti!” Madi yelled, brushing her math homework off the table to the ground.  “Shirts off spaghetti time!”

She was already stripping off her shirt before she’d finished speaking, and then helping Seph out of hers.

“Mommy, you’re still wearing your shirt,” she pointed out, frowning at Clarke as she climbed back on the bench.

“Yeah, Clarke,” Murphy laughed, finishing pulling off his own shirt.  “I made you dinner, now you have to take off your shirt.”

Clarke rolled her eyes as she pulled it off.  “Give me a minute,” she muttered.

Shirts off spaghetti time had started the first time they’d had spaghetti with Madi, when both Madi and Seph had ended up bathed in red and they’d had to spend hours trying to scrub out the stains.

Madi had refused until Clarke and Murphy had taken off their own shirts, and then pointed out that Clarke was still wearing her bra.

“It’s not like I haven’t seen your boobs before,” Murphy had said, shrugging.

It had been a fair point.  Due to breast feeding alone, Murphy had seen her boobs a lot more than she’d ever expected Murphy to have seen her boobs.  Add to that the time he’d spent nursing her back to health during and after her coma, the period during her labour where she’d cursed out her shirt and thrown it across the room, the time they spent trapped in the rover during the sandstorm, and the fact that they shared a bedroom and had turned at the wrong time while changing too many times to count, and, well, Murphy seeing her boobs had become a non-issue at that point.

So shirts off spaghetti time had become a thing, and Clarke just hoped her kids could eat without covering themselves in food by the time everyone got back from space and out of the bunker.

“You’re teaching her calculus?” Clarke asked, once she was appropriately shirtless and they’d dug into dinner.  Madi already had spaghetti sauce in her hair, and Seph was less skin than sauce.

“She wanted to learn it.”  Murphy shrugged, like teaching calculus to a seven year old was something everyone did.  Which, Clarke supposed, seven year olds learning calculus wasn’t the weirdest thing that had happened in her time on Earth.

 

**902 APF**

Echo stormed into the control room.  Raven was tinkering on some machine that she couldn’t be bothered to remember the name was and Bellamy was pretending he was helping and not just being in the way.

“I have a problem,” she announced, and Raven rolled out from under the machine she was working on.

“With what?”

“The speaker in my room,” she said, and then stalked out of the room again.  They’d follow her. 

They did follow her, all the way to her bedroom.

“If this is a setup for a surprise attack,” Bellamy warned, stopping his threat before he got to the actual threat itself.

Echo rolled her eyes.  Like she would be that unsubtle.

“What’s wrong with it?” Raven asked when they got to her room, glancing up at the speaker in the corner.  Clarke and Murphy’s voices were blaring out of it, a particularly terrible song choice on Bellamy’s part.  Echo was pretty sure he’d only picked it because his daughter sang along at one point, but the baby’s singing was only arguably better than Clarke and Murphy’s.

Echo flopped back on her bed, picking up one of the instruction manuals she’d found in the rocket.  “It won’t stop spewing out crap,” she said, flipping back to the page she’d been on.  “I think there’s a clog.”

She didn’t have to look up to know Raven was rolling her eyes.

“So there’s not an actual problem,” she said, and Echo flipped another page.

“There is a problem,” she countered.  “The problem is that Bellamy’s girlfriend and Murphy can’t sing worth shit and we don’t have a doctor to help once my eardrums finally burst.”

Bellamy sighed.  “She’s not my girlfriend.”

“And yet that’s the only part you can argue.”  Echo looked back up at them, raising an eyebrow.

Raven and Bellamy stared at her for another minute, unimpressed, until Bellamy sighed.

“I’ll pick another song,” he allowed, and Echo grinned at him, all teeth.

“That’s all I ask,” she said.  Really, it wasn’t.  If she thought it’d do any good, she would also ask that Clarke and Murphy get some singing lessons, but that was neither here nor there.  She turned back to her manual, flipping the page.  “Close the door on your way out.”

 

**888 APF**

Butterflies were something Clarke hadn’t really seen since their Dropship days, back before all the war and the death.  Back when she still sometimes felt like a kid.

But they were back.  Or maybe they’d never left.  Either way, they lived in the valley by the lake.

She’d gotten back from hunting to find Murphy and the girls doing some hunting of their own, jumping around with the fishing nets and trying to catch the glowing bugs.

“Mommy help!” Seph waved a net at her, and Clarke laughed accepting it.

“Of course Mommy will help.”

She jumped around, grinning at Murphy when she caught his eye.

“Who would’ve thought John Murphy would be catching butterflies,” she laughed, and Murphy rolled his eyes.

“Catching butterflies is very manly,” he countered, and then caught Madi’s head in his net.  “Right, hobbit?”

“Super manly,” Madi agreed, lowering her voice and half-squatting while throwing her arms in the air.

“What are you doing?” Clarke asked, and Madi rolled her eyes, pushing the net off her face.

“Being a man.  Duh.”

“That’s not what I do.”  Murphy frowned at Madi as she jumped away, and a butterfly landed on his head.  Clarke tossed her net over his face, missing the butterfly but catching him instead.  “Thanks.”

“No problem.” 

Clarke grinned at him, and Murphy held his scowl for another moment before he cracked.  He tugged the net off his face and tossed it across the yard.

“Murphy, what the fuck?” 

He smirked at her and winked, and then hopped a step away, swiping at a butterfly that passed.

Clarke rolled her eyes and crossed the yard, pausing to grin at Seph, frozen and giggling with a dozen or so butterflies perched on her.

It happened so fast.

One second she was retrieving her net.  The next a Grounder was running out of the woods, a horrific cry ripping from his throat and an ax held over his head.

One second the rifle was on the table, still loaded from the hunting trip that morning.  The next it was in her hands.

One second the Grounder was running at them, at Madi.  The next he’d fallen to the ground, a bullet in his skull.

Clarke was frozen.  She couldn’t hear anything past the blood pounding in her ears, couldn’t see anything but the dead Grounder, lying on the dirt next to a ball and a stuffed bunny, a puddle of black spreading bigger and bigger.

Her eyes darted up, her gun moving from the Grounder to the forest as she scanned for others.  There couldn’t just be one.  There was never just one.  There was the first one, the one that took the hit, the one that signalled a bigger attack.

There was never just one.

There was never just one threat, never just one person to kill to keep her people safe.  They started to come and they didn’t stop, never stopped, never slowed down.

She’d been an idiot, thinking they were safe here.  Safety wasn’t possible on Earth.  It didn’t exist, except in brief moments that were always shattered by fear and death and pain.

They weren’t safe.

They were never safe.

The forest swam before her.  She should blink.  Then she could see it better, could better watch for the threat that was going to come, the threat that always came after the first attack.

She should blink.

But if she blinked she could miss it.

Hours or minutes later, something touched her arm and she swung herself and her gun around.  Eyes wide as she searched for the threat.

How had it gotten past her?  How had it gotten so close?

She blinked without meaning to, and the threat came into focus.  First the blue of his hoodie, brighter than anything she’d seen grounders wear.  Next his hands, raised up and palms towards her in surrender.  Then his mouth, lips forming words she couldn’t hear past the blood in her ears, the terror and the adrenalin making her deaf.

It took too long to put an identity to the face, to the man in front of her.

“Murphy.”

She couldn’t hear if she actually managed to say the words, but it didn’t matter.  She hadn’t missed a threat.  One hadn’t gotten past her.  She turned away from them, training her gun back on the forest.

Where there was one, there was a hundred.

She’d thought they were safe, but they weren’t.

They’d never be safe.

*********

It happened so fast.

Murphy had heard the scream and the gunshot before he managed to turn.  By the time he’d heard, by the time he’d moved to see what was happening, Clarke had already shot the Grounder.

Seph was sobbing, her hands clutching her ears.  Madi was just standing there, staring down at the dead Grounder by her feet.  Clarke had the rifle still in her hands, scanning the forest for more.

“Madi!” Murphy yelled, running forward towards the table, towards the shovel that was leaning there.  “Madi, get your sister and get in the house now!”

Madi turned from the dead Grounder, staring up at him instead.  “But—”

“Now!”

Her eyes widened and she jumped before sprinting off, and Murphy grabbed the shovel, listening as Madi scooped up Seph, as the door to the house slammed shut.  He’d deal with the fact that his daughter had looked scared of him in that moment later, when they were safe.

He positioned himself next to Clarke, a little ways away, the shovel raised above his head.  If he wasn’t so terrified, if he hadn’t just almost had to watch Madi die, watch his daughter die, he might’ve laughed.  He never got the gun in these situations.  At least a shovel was better than a rock.

They stood there, staring out into the forest, for what felt like hours, waiting for any sign of more trouble, of this Grounder not being alone.

They stood there until Murphy’s arms were burning from holding up the shovel, until he could think properly again.

As the blind panic went away, logic started coming back.  The chances of one Grounder with Nightblood living this long weren’t high.  The chances of one Grounder with Nightblood living this long _and_ being in the right place to survive Praimfaya?  Practically none.

Logic said the Grounder was alone.  Logic said there weren’t anymore, that there wasn’t going to be another attack.  Logic said they were safe.

Still, every part of him protested when he knelt to put down the shovel, as he gave up the one piece of protection he had.

“Clarke, we should—” He broke off as he turned to her.  She was frozen.  Every part of her was tensed beyond anything Murphy could remember seeing.  The rifle was still raised, her eyes darting back and forth across the forest and her chest rising and falling far too quickly.

“Clarke,” he said, and she didn’t seem like she heard, like she even knew he was there at all.

Fuck.  Okay.

He reached out, touching her shoulder.  “Clarke.”

She swung around, eyes wide and wild, and Murphy had to jump back before the rifle hit him in the nose.

“Fuck,” he said, throwing his hands up.  “Clarke, it’s me.  We’re okay.  It’s just me.”

He kept talking as she stared at him, as he ignored the gun in his face, hoping Clarke would come back to reality before firing it.  _Fuck_ , he hoped this wasn’t how he died.  Clarke would never forgive herself if she killed him.  And the kids?  It was bad enough they had to explain why there was now a dead body.  If Murphy had any say in it, they’d never have to lose either of them, not for a very long time.

Recognition dawned slowly in Clarke’s eyes, through the terror clouding them.

“Murphy,” she said, voice raw and low.  He nodded, but she was already turning back to the forest.

“Clarke,” he said again, but she still didn’t seem to hear him.  He crossed back into her line of sight, slowly reaching up to grab her arms.  Her eyes darted to him briefly before continuing her search.  “Clarke, look at me.  Put down the gun.  He’s dead.  We’re safe.  We’re all safe.  He’s dead.  There aren’t anymore.”

He kept speaking as he caught her attention, her eyes staying on him more than the forest.  He kept speaking, kept telling her they were okay, they were alive, they were safe, trying to convince her and himself, as he eased them to the ground.

“We’re okay,” he told her, wrapping himself around her as they sat, putting his hands over hers.  “You can drop the gun.  He’s dead and we’re safe and it’s okay.”

Her fingers were stiff, but she kept her eyes on his, let him slowly pry them from the gun.  Once it was free, he tossed it aside, just far enough to be out of her reach but still within his, close enough that he could grab it in a second if it was needed.

“Breathe,” he told her, because she wasn’t.  Her eyes were still wide, still full of terror, and her breaths were somehow both too fast and too slow.  He moved her hands to his chest, urging her to breathe with him, to match their breaths.  His heart was beating too fast, fast enough to beat out of his chest, but his breathing was fine for now.  It took a while, but her breathing evened out, returned to a more normal pace.

“We’re okay,” he said again, and he could tell she heard him this time and hoped she believed him.  He tugged her closer held her still-tense body tightly against him as his own eyes scanned the forest.  “We’re okay, Clarke.  We’re gonna be okay.  We’re cockroaches, remember?  We’re gonna live forever.”

It took a bit for them to stand, for Murphy’s legs to stop shaking enough to hold him upright and pull her with him.  She still hadn’t said anything, still tense and stiff and afraid, but he could understand why.

They’d thought they were safe.  They’d thought they were finally safe on this hellhole of a planet, and it’d come back to bite them in the ass.

He was pretty sure the only reason he could function was because he hadn’t been the one to take the shot.

She let him lead her inside, through their house to their bedroom.  She settled onto the bed, staring at a spot on the wall and not moving, and Murphy cursed under his breath.

“Clarke,” he said, leaning towards her, his hand on her cheek.  Her eyes snapped to his.  “We’re okay.  I’ll be back soon, okay?”

She didn’t answer, her gaze shifting back to the wall.

Murphy swore again, pulling away and heading to their window.  He pulled shut the shutters, cursing again at the lack of locks.  Why didn’t they have locks?  Why didn’t they have locks on anything in this house?  Why did they get so comfortable that they didn’t ever think to add fucking locks?

He moved from the room, heading back towards the front of the house.  He knew it was stupid, feeling more unsafe with the lack of locks when the chances of another Grounder being alive let alone deciding to attack were so low, but he felt it.

It was mechanical.  Move to the window.  Close the shutters.  Curse out the lack of locks.  Move to the next.  Again and again, until he got to Madi and Seph’s room.

“Papa?”

He blinked, his eyes falling on his daughters.  Seph was asleep, tucked into their bed, and Madi was sitting on the ground with a book.

“Fuck,” he said, dropping to the ground next to her.  How had he forgotten about them?  He’d been so caught up in making sure they were safe, in making sure Clarke got inside, in making sure the threat was gone and couldn’t get in, that he’d forgotten about checking on them.

Fuck.  What kind of a dad did that make him?

“Are you okay?” he asked Madi, and she nodded, staring at him.  Her face from before, from outside, flashed in his mind, and he winced.  “I’m sorry if I scared you.  I didn’t mean to yell at you.  I was just scared.”

Madi nodded again.  “I know.”  She looked back down at her book.  “I changed my shirt.  His blood got on it, so I had to change it.”

“We can try to get it out later.”  Madi nodded again and Seph shifted in the bed.  Murphy glanced over at her quickly before looking back at Madi.  “Are you sure you’re okay?  It’s okay if you’re not.”

Madi didn’t look up.  “Is he dead?”

Murphy paused a moment before answering.  “Yeah,” he said slowly.  “Yeah, he’s dead.”

“And Mommy killed him?”

“Yeah.”

Madi looked up then, her eyebrows creased together.  “He wanted to kill me.”  It wasn’t a question but a statement, and Murphy wondered if she’d seen him before he had, if she’d watched him come towards her.

“Yeah,” he said.  “Yeah, he did.  Mommy shot him so he wouldn’t.”

His daughter watched him for a minute longer, like she was trying to tell if he was hiding something from her.

Murphy didn’t know what she found in his face, if she saw how scared he still was and how much he wanted to just lock them all inside where it was safe, where no one and nothing could get to them and rip away even more people he loved, or if she saw something else, but she nodded again, turning back to her book.

“I’m okay,” she told him again.  “I don’t think Mommy is, though.”

“Yeah,” Murphy agreed, looking back at the door.  “She’ll be okay, though.”

He stood, closing the shutters on the bedroom window.  “Stay inside,” he told Madi.  “Do not go outside without telling me, okay?  I’m gonna be with your mom, and you might hear crying, but we’re okay.  We’re all okay.  There’s leftovers on the counter and make sure your sister’s okay.  You come get me if you need me, okay?”

Madi nodded again, turning a page in her book, and Murphy pressed a kiss to the top of her head before leaving the room.  He closed the rest of the windows wishing again for actual fucking locks, and then crept back into his room.

Clarke was still on the bed where he’d left her.  Exactly where he’d left her.  Sitting awkwardly and staring at the wall.

Fuck.

Okay.

Murphy ran a hand through his hair, moving closer to the bed.  “Clarke,” he said, voice soft, and her eyes snapped over to him.  “We’re safe, okay?  We’re alive.  We’re all alive.”

She didn’t say anything, didn’t move, and Murphy cursed under his breath.  Okay.  Okay.  He could do this.  He’d helped Clarke through nightmares.  This wouldn’t be much different, right?

Of course, the nightmares were either made up scenarios or memories, things that’d already happened a million years ago.  This was happening now, still happening.  There was still a dead Grounder just outside their house.  He was still terrified another would come, destroy their peace and their home and rip their family apart.

But he could do this.  He had to do this.  He had to be there for Clarke when the shock wore off and reality hit.

“Okay,” he said, reaching out for her and helping move her closer to the edge of the bed.  “First we’re gonna get in our pyjamas, and we’re just gonna lay here, okay?” 

Clarke didn’t react, so he turned away, closing his eyes and trying to keep from panicking too much as he dug around for their pyjamas.  He changed his pants, quickly, and then helped Clarke into hers.  Her movements were robotic, choppy, but she followed his directions, easing out of her jeans and jacket and into something softer, more comfortable.

“We’re gonna be okay,” he told her, helping her move higher on the bed now, following her up.  He wrapped his arms around her and she let him, still stiff and silent.  “The girls are good.  We don’t have to worry about them right now.  They’re okay.  We’re all okay.  Everything’s okay.”

He kept talking, his fingers stroking through her hair as he whispered the same things over and over again to her.  They were okay.  They were all alive.  They were safe.  He was dead.  He wasn’t coming back.  Everything was okay.

He was trying to convince himself as much as he was trying to convince her.  Logically, he knew it was all true.  Logically, he knew the Grounder was dead and there weren’t any more coming after them.  Logically, he knew they were safe, that their home was safe and nothing had really changed.

But he didn’t believe it.  Not yet.

So he whispered to Clarke, trying to make himself believe it.

It was a while later before Clarke moved.  Her shoulders shook first, and then the rest of her.  Murphy clutched her closer as the first sob left her.

“We’re okay,” he whispered.  “We’re alive, Clarke.  We’re all alive.  Cockroaches, right?  We’re cockroaches.  All of us.  The kids too.  That means we’re gonna live forever.  So we’re safe, okay?  We’re safe.”

He held her as she broke, as he broke, his words fractured nonsense that he whispered into her hair.  She clung to him as he rocked them, and he pulled her closer.

“We’re okay.  We’re alive.  We’re safe.  We’re okay.”

*********

Clarke woke screaming.  She didn’t know what time it was, but it was dark.  She was screaming and scratching at her skin, at the fire that was burning in her.

She screamed, and something wrapped around her.  She struggled for a moment before Murphy’s voice reached her ears, telling her she was safe.

And she was.  There was a Grounder, but he was dead, and they were okay.

She calmed down, gasping in air, and Murphy’s hands stroked her hair, her cheeks.

“We’re okay,” he told her, again and again.  “We’re all okay and we’re safe and—”

“I killed him,” she whispered, her voice raw.  She couldn’t remember the last time she’d spoken, if she’d spoken at all since it’d happened.  “I shot him and he’s dead.”

“I know.”  Murphy held her tight, and she tried to believe she deserved it, deserved his care, when she’d just killed someone earlier that day.  “He tried to kill Madi.”

She nodded.  She knew that.  She’d kill a thousand people to save her daughters, to save Murphy, to save Bellamy, to save any of them.  She’d done it before and she’d do it again.

But…

“I forgot,” she breathed, closing her eyes and pressing closer.  “I forgot how it feels.  It’s just—”

She broke off, unable to put into words the way it felt, burning up inside her.  She’d taken a life that day.  It didn’t matter why, it was still another life added to the long list of those she’d taken.

She hadn’t had to do that in years.  It’d been almost two and a half years since she’d had to kill anyone, since their lives had been in danger.

She forgot how terrifying it was.  She forgot how terrible it felt to save someone’s life by taking another.

“I know,” Murphy whispered, his lips pressed to her hair.  “We’re gonna be okay.”

 

**889 APF**

Clarke was awake.  She was pretending she wasn’t, but Murphy knew her well enough by now to be able to tell the difference.

Madi and Seph hadn’t come into their room that morning.  Murphy was sure they’d heard Clarke screaming in the night, her nightmares and ghosts waking her up again and again.  He could hear them in the living room, giggling over something.

“Clarke,” he whispered, pressing closer to her.  She didn’t move, didn’t give any indication she could hear him.  “Clarke, I’m getting up, okay?  I’ll be outside for a bit.”

He waited a few more moments for her to respond, but pulled himself out of bed when she didn’t.

The girls were in the living room as he’d predicted, piling up containers and pots into a tower.

“Good morning,” he greeted, forcing a grin he didn’t feel onto his face.  “How’re my girls?”

“Super good,” Madi said, jumping up from the ground and launching herself into his arms.  He stooped to pick up Seph, too, swinging them around.  “Can we go swimming today?”

“Not today,” he told her, and she groaned.  “Today’s gonna be an inside day again, okay?”

Madi huffed, wiggling out of his arms.  “Why?” she asked, crossing her arms.  “Cause there’s a dead guy in the yard?  I’ve seen lots of dead guys, Papa.  All I ever saw were dead guys until you and Mommy got here.”

Right.  That was definitely her life.  Fuck.  He needed to talk to Clarke about Madi’s unusual relationship with death, apparently.  But later.

“Yes,” he said, letting Seph back down when she complained.  “But you’re staying inside today.”  Madi opened her mouth to protest again, but he shook his head.  “No arguments, kid.  Inside.”

Madi wrinkled her nose, but sunk back onto the floor to continue her stacking.  “We ate breakfast already,” she told him, and Murphy nodded.

“Good,” he said, moving for the door.  “I’ll be back in a bit.  Your mom’s still in bed.”

Neither girl acknowledged him, preoccupied with throwing spoons at the tower and trying to knock it down.

Murphy nodded to himself as he went outside.  This was good.  They seemed okay from yesterday.  He and Clarke might not be okay yet, but the girls were.  That was good.  That was really good.

He ran a hand through his hair as he crossed the yard to the woodshed.

They were okay, he told himself, grabbing the wheelbarrow.  They were all okay.

He repeated it to himself as he wheeled it over to the Grounder.  There were bugs on his face, the fat purple ones that Madi liked, and Murphy pushed down the disgust.

He could do this.

He could get rid of the body.  Nothing he hadn’t done before.

He pulled it into the wheelbarrow, and it was lighter than he expected.  The Grounder was so thin, skin and bones.  It reminded him of how skinny they were when they finally reached the valley, when they’d been starving for so long.

He pushed the thoughts away.  He didn’t want to know what the Grounder had been doing all this time, what his goals had been in attacking them.  He didn’t want to think about it.

He grabbed the shovel and the rifle, just in case, and wheeled into the woods.

He’d bury the Grounder.  They didn’t have enough wood cut for the winter yet to waste any in burning him, so he’d bury him in the graveyard with the skeletons they’d found in the village.  He’d bury the body and then clean off in the lake and then go home and try to move past it.

Because they were okay.  They were okay and they were alive and they were safe and they were going to stay that way.

He wasn’t going to lose any more of his family, not now and not ever.

 

**913 APF**

“Bunny!” Seph said, her little hand pointing up into the air.

“I think it’s more like a dragon elephant shark,” Madi countered, and Murphy laughed.

“I don’t think that’s a real thing,” he said, and Madi turned her head to stick out her tongue.

They were lying on the grass, finding pictures in the clouds.  Clarke hadn’t contributed much, but she’d been pretty quiet since the Grounder incident.  She was still having nightmares, waking up gasping for breath at least once a night.

Murphy couldn’t blame her.  He tried not to remember the first time he’d killed someone, back at the Dropship.  He’d barely been able to sleep for weeks, saw their face every time he closed his eyes.  If he had to kill someone now?  After two and a half years of peace, of barely having to consider the possibility?  If he was being honest, Clarke was doing a lot better than he thought he would be.

“That one’s a duck,” Madi supplied, pointing at another cloud.  “But it’s a duck with, like, six legs and a dinosaur head.”

“You’re just extra silly today,” Clarke said, laughing.  “Did you take too many silly pills at breakfast?”

“I took all the silly pills,” Madi confirmed, and Clarke laughed again.

Murphy wasn’t looking at the clouds anymore, couldn’t argue for or against Madi and Seph’s interpretations.

He was staring instead at Clarke, at the smile on her face.  He hadn’t seen her smile, not a real one, not one that reached her eyes, since before.  He hadn’t heard her laugh at all since then, either.

She pointed out another shape, countering Madi’s latest made up animal with an even more extreme one of her own.

“Papa,” Madi whined from his other side.  “Why aren’t you saying any?”

Murphy blinked back into the moment, turning his head briefly to glance at the sky.  “That one’s a turtle,” he said, pointing randomly, already looking back at Clarke before he finished.

She was looking at him now, the smile still on her face.  She reached across the space between them, grabbed his hand and squeezed.

He grinned back at her, turning back to the clouds.

They were okay.  Clarke was okay and he was okay and the girls were okay.  They were all okay and they were safe and they were alive.

They were okay.

 

**942 APF**

_“Love you, Dada!”_

Bellamy grinned down at his tablet.  The smile hadn’t left his face since the call that morning, the call where Clarke and Murphy and Madi had sung happy birthday to Seph.

His daughter was two.  He’d missed two years of her life, and it killed him, but she still loved him.

Of course, at this point she didn’t really know who he was.  She probably thought the radio was called Dada, not that there was another whole person out there that loved her and wished he could be with her.

But right now that didn’t really matter to him.  Because she loved him, even if it was probably just a radio she associated with the idea of him.

She loved him, and he got to hear her say it.

Harper found him when he was replaying the message again, listening to Seph rapidly tell him some story that he only caught every few words from.  Something about Madi and maybe bear?

She flopped on the bed beside him, hugging one of his pillows to her chest.

“We’re over halfway there,” she said when the message ended, bumping their shoulders together.  “Over halfway to meeting her.”

“I know.”  Bellamy leaned back, closing his eyes.  He had mixed feelings right now.  They’d passed the halfway mark a month or so back, which meant they were on the home stretch for going back to Earth.  He had less than two and a half years until he got to meet his daughter, but that was still two and a half more years.  She’d be four and a half by the time he got to see her.  That was four and a half years of her life he’d miss, four and a half years he’d never get back.

But he was over halfway to seeing her.  Over halfway to holding her and telling her how much he loved her.

“I want kids,” Harper said, and Bellamy opened his eyes to look at her.  She smiled at him, twisting her engagement ring on her finger.  “I know we heard Clarke in labour, and it sounded horrible, but I want kids.  Lots of them.”

“Me too,” Bellamy admitted, and Harper grinned wider.  He laughed.  “I also heard Clarke in labour, though, so I’m pretty sure I’m just getting the one.”

Harper bumped their shoulders again.  “You can be the best Uncle Bellamy to mine then,” she promised.

Bellamy hit play again, and they listened to the message once more.

“Monty wants kids, too,” Harper said after it’d finished, after they’d listened to Seph tell him she loves him one more time.  “We’re waiting until we’re back on the ground, obviously.  I don’t want to put a kid through entering the atmosphere.  I don’t really want to put myself through that again, honestly.”

“Me neither.”  Bellamy laughed with her, lifting an arm to wrap it over her shoulders.  “You’re gonna be a great mom, Harper.”

“Thanks.”  She grinned up at him.  “Seph’s a really lucky kid.”

They sat there a while longer, playing through old messages, and Harper told him the names she’d picked for her kids while Bellamy told her all the things he was going to do with Seph one day.

Two and a half more years, and he’d get to meet her.

Two and a half more years, and Bellamy would finally get to be a dad for real and Harper and Monty could start their own family.

Two and a half more years.

 

**979 APF**

They were celebrating the first snowfall of the year by dancing in it.

The flakes fell softly around them, dancing in the light of the fire and getting trapped on their lashes and in their hair.

Seph was spinning around on her own, her hands stretched up to the sky and her mouth open, catching the snow on her tongue.  Madi was giggling, trying to scoop enough snow off the table to make a snowball.  Clarke was picking a song, her hair tucked up under one of the wool toques they’d made to keep her ears warm.

Murphy was just watching it all, the warmth of the fire on his face as he watched them.  He was happy.  So fucking happy.

Clarke picked a song and grabbed his hand, tugging him away from the fire to dance.  She released him once they got to a more clear area, jerking around in movements that sort of resembled dancing.  Not that he could judge.  He was at about the same level of bad dancing as she was.

“Pick up!” Seph yelled, stumbling over to Clarke with her hands in the air.  Clarke obliged their daughter, depositing her on her hip and starting a dance that was more swaying.

“Madi,” Murphy called, and their other daughter jerked her head up.  “There’s not enough yet for snowballs, and dancing was your idea.”

“Oh yeah.”  Madi hopped down from the table, joining their little clump and shaking her whole body.  She liked to criticize their dancing, but, honestly, she wasn’t any better.

They danced in the snow, and Murphy’s nose froze but he didn’t care.  There was snow and a fire and his family and he was happy.

The song changed, and Madi booed it, so he went over to change it, scrolling through the song list as he watched them.

Madi had taken to just spinning in place, her hands circled above her head like a ballerina.  Clarke encouraged her, showing some other ballet moves that she couldn’t really execute either.  Murphy grinned at her awkward moves, made only more so by her inability to dance and the toddler still perched on her hip.  Her smile lit up her face as she laughed, and he’d have been shocked if his smile didn’t grow along with hers.

 _Fuck_ , he loved her.

The thought crossed his mind and he froze, his hand poised over the MP3, staring at her as she continued dancing with their daughters.

Fuck.

He loved her.

He couldn’t—could he?  That wasn’t allowed.  He wasn’t allowed to be in love with Clarke.  He wasn’t allowed, not when she had Bellamy coming back, not when being in love with her could change everything, could jeopardize their family.

But then she started singing along to the melody flowing from the radio, loud and offkey and perfect, and she had Madi switched from ballet to the weird, spastic thing she did with her arms, and he thought that maybe it didn’t matter if it was allowed, because he was pretty sure he’d been feeling this for a long time without knowing the name for it.

He was in love with Clarke.

_Shit._

“Papa, come on,” Madi urged, suddenly in front of him and tugging on his arm.  “Why aren’t you dancing?”

Murphy blinked himself out of his daze, swallowing heavily.

“Sorry.”

He looked back down at the MP3, selecting a song at random and letting Madi tug him back onto the dance floor, his thoughts swimming around too fast for him to catch onto any.  Clarke caught his eye over their daughters, as Madi clutched his hands as she tried to balance on his shoes.

“You okay?” she asked, her smile replaced with a small frown.

“Yeah,” he said, forcing a smile onto his face, like everything was normal, like he hadn’t just had a life altering realization, like he wasn’t in love with the woman he was platonically raising a family with.  “Everything’s great.”

 

**982 APF**

Murphy was honestly kind of a mess.  He didn’t do feelings.  Feelings weren’t something he did, like, ever.  Usually when he had a crush, he dealt with it by ignoring it until it went away.

But this, what he felt for Clarke, it wasn’t a crush.  There was no way anyone could call it something as small as a crush.

He sat down in front of the radio that he’d dragged outside, already too cold as his breath puffed in front of him.  Clarke was inside, curled up in their bed where it was warm, and he was so, so tempted to just keep pretending he could ignore this, that everything was normal still.

But it wasn’t normal.  He was in love with her, and no matter how much he ignored it, it didn’t seem to be going away.

He didn’t think anyone would be listening, but there was a high probability that him embarrassing himself by feeling things would make the bunker magically start hearing the calls just so Miller could mock him.

Which was okay.  It would be more than okay, as long as that mocking actually contained some advice.

He didn’t know what to do.  Ignoring it hadn’t done anything so far.  He’d tried following his idol’s lead and singing his feelings in a field, but Troy Bolton didn’t actually have a song that really encapsulated this situation, and, anyway, Madi had caught him singing Bet On It and it had then turned into a contest of who could scream the loudest and then they just sang Mamma Mia until Clarke and Seph found them, so the singing hadn’t really done much to help.  The screaming didn’t either, but that at least had felt good.

So this was his last hope.  He couldn’t talk to anyone—Clarke was out of the question, Madi couldn’t keep a secret to save her life (ironic, considering her life had once been a secret), and unloading all this on a baby just seemed unfair.

So it was up to the radio to help, and whatever magical alien being that may or may not be listening.

“Hey,” he started, feeling stupid and cold even as he did so.  “So we all know I don’t actually believe that anyone out there can hear me, but there’s something I’ve been thinking about for a while and I’m kind of freaking out?”

He paused, letting his breath out through his teeth and rubbing his free hand over his arm, trying to restart the blood flow before he got hypothermia and it fell off. 

“It’s been the only thing I can think about for the last, like, week, so if there’s any aliens out there tuning in, this would be the time to chime in with some advice.”  He paused again, taking a deep breath and wondering why he was so nervous about this, when no one was even listening.  “Okay.  I’m just gonna say it.  I’m just gonna go ahead and say it.  I think I’m—no.  That’s wrong.  I don’t think.  I _know_. 

“I’m in love with Clarke.”  

He let out a heavy breath, shaking his head.  It felt like a weight had been let off his shoulders, even as another settled into his gut.  

“Fuck, that’s the first time I’ve said it out loud.  It feels kind of good?  But also terrifying.  Fuck.  Okay.  Aliens, please give me some advice on how to deal with this or stop feeling it or something, because I don’t know what the fuck I’m supposed to do, and I _can’t_ be feeling this, okay?  She’s in love with Bellamy.  I can’t be in love with her.  So I need you to help me make this stop.  Please.”

He clicked off the radio, feeling like an idiot as he sat there waiting for a response that wasn’t going to come.

“Fuck,” he muttered under his breath, picking up the radio and carrying it back into the house.

The heat of their fire hit him as he stepped inside, his nose starting to run as he peeled off his coats and boots.  He stalled longer than he wanted to, every bit of him screaming to hurry up, that the faster he got ready, the faster he could curl up around her and hold her, pretend he wasn’t pretending it wasn’t completely platonic on her end.

Clarke had the light off already when he finally made it in, and she rolled over to face him when he climbed under the covers.

“You okay?” she asked, and he nodded.  She didn’t seem convinced, and looked like she was going to say something else, but Murphy beat her to it—by wrapping himself around her and pressing his frozen toes against her calves and his hands under the edge of her shirt to press against her stomach.

“What the fuck?” she squealed, pushing him away.

Murphy held her tighter, laughing as he covered even more of her with his cold skin.  

“Payback’s a bitch,” he told her, and she shoved him again before stopping her struggles and wrinkling her nose at him.

“Dick.”

He grinned at her, then tucked his face into her neck so he wouldn’t do something even stupider than falling in love with her in the first place—something like kiss her or, even worse, tell her—and disguised the action by rubbing his frozen nose against her skin.

“Fuck off,” she muttered, but she’d pulled his hands from her stomach and to rub them between her own, so he could tell she didn’t really mean it.  “Night, John.”

“Night, Clarke.”

Murphy realized something as he listened to Clarke’s breathing even out while he lied awake, rubbing her arms with his hands.  It didn’t matter whether Miller or aliens or anyone else heard his message and answered.  He was in love with Clarke, and he didn’t think anything they could say would be able to change that.  But he also couldn’t do anything about it.  Which meant one thing:

He was absolutely fucked.

* * *

  _I wouldn't know where to start_  
_Sweet music playing in the dark_  
_Be still my foolish heart_  
_Don't ruin this on me_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Somewhere far away, on a spaceship that has also been getting the radio transmissions and where the aliens have been listening to it like it's their favourite radio show and are highly invested in Clarke and Murphy and their kids' lives, the alien that was on night shift runs through the halls of the ship waking everyone up because "holy shit guys it's happening and apparently he needs our help!" (unfortunately they can't send a message back either, though, so poor Murphy can't even get his alien help)
> 
> Also, I skipped a couple birthdays in this chapter cause picking presents is hard so writing about birthdays is hard, so here are the ages of everybody at the end of this chapter:
> 
> Seph: 2  
> Madi: 7  
> Clarke and Murphy: 22  
> Monty and Harper: 21  
> Raven: 23  
> Bellamy and Echo: 26 ish
> 
> Spacekru ages are more estimates because I don't have set birthdays for them, but Harper and Monty were a year below Clarke and Murphy in school and Raven a year above so that's about where they're all at.
> 
> Hope you enjoyed! Next chapter will be up as soon as I can write it, but the aim again is two weeks!
> 
> Comments and kudos make my fingers faster! Come find me on Tumblr at probably-voldemort!


	14. he's cheer captain (and i'm on the bleachers)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey hey hey!! 
> 
> This is a little bit later than I wanted. My brain has been wanting to write future chapters and not this one so it was slow going. But now it's here!
> 
> Apologies in advance if the pacing of this chapter seems weird. The tones of the stories from Earth and the Ark for this chapter are a lot more different than each other than previous chapters and finding the pacing and timing of scenes that worked was hard and I'm still not totally happy with it but I wanted to get it posted. So sorry if some of the scene changes seem weird or like they have a jarring tone change or whatever, but it is what it is.
> 
> Fun fact: This is the last chapter that covers a super large chunk of time. Starting next chapter, we'll be covering smaller chunks of time again. Which will be great because that means there'll be more detail and more plot!!
> 
> Another fun fact: I am going on vacation next week! I am hoping to get the next chapter written before I leave, but that's not necessarily something that'll happen. So this is your warning that the next chapter will either be posted on or by July 6th, or not until like two weeks later when I'm back from vacation and have had time to write it.
> 
> Also another reminder that I don't watch the new episodes until the Wednesday or Thursday after it airs, so please no spoilers in the comments if a new episode fits into that time frame.
> 
> Anywho, there's a bunch of emotional angst in this chapter but also a bunch of fluff, and if you're still here, I know you enjoy both!
> 
> The song for the chapter is Taylor Swift's You Belong With Me, but it is up to you to decide who is the cheer captain and who is on the bleachers (personally I think both Bellamy and Murphy fit with both roles)
> 
> And without further ado, please enjoy.

_Oh, I remember you driving to my house in the middle of the night_  
_I'm the one who makes you laugh when you know you're about to cry_  
_And I know your favourite songs a_ _nd you tell me about your dreams_  
_Think I know where you belong  
_ _Think I know it's with me_  

* * *

 

**957 APF**

Murphy was not the first person to realize he was in love with Clarke.

No, that honour went to Harper.

Murphy’s tone had changed, the way he talked to and about Clarke.  The first change was so long ago she could hardly remember him sounding different.  It’d been easy to identify, the fondness in his voice.  Harper hadn’t really thought about it, not at first.  Of course he’d be fond of Clarke.  They were the only two people on the surface of the planet, for a while, and then all they’d had for company since were kids.  Of course they’d bond and develop a relationship.  Clarke sounded just as fond of him when she spoke.

But the fondness had been changing.  Subtly enough at first that Harper only noticed it now when they listened to old radio calls.

It changed more drastically a few months back.  Or, well, maybe not more drastically, but that was the point that Harper had finally caught on.

He was different.  Something had changed.

She couldn’t quite put her finger on what this new tone meant.

Not until she was in her room, late at night, and Monty was kissing down her neck and whispering sweet nothings in her ear.

And then it hit her.

That tone, the new tone that Murphy had when he talked to Clarke or about her, it was the same one Monty used with her.

Holy shit.

Her eyes snapped open and she gasped.

“Oh my god,” she whispered, and Monty hummed against her neck.  “Murphy!”

He froze.  “Did you just call me—?”

“No.”  Harper laughed as she interrupted him, turning to face him.

Monty raised an eyebrow.  “Really?” he asked, laughing slightly.  “Because it sounded like you called me Murphy.”

“I didn’t call you Murphy,” she told him again, rolling her eyes.  “I was just thinking—”

“That you’d rather be doing this with Murphy?” Monty finished, grinning at her now.  “And you were scared _I_ was going to leave _you_ for him.”

“Will you shut up?” Harper huffed and crossed her arms.  “That’s not what I was thinking.  I was just thinking about Clarke and Murphy—”

“During our foreplay?”

“— _earlier_ and I finally figured out what his tone means.”  Harper grinned at Monty, watching him struggle with whether he should continue with being offended she’d been thinking about Clarke and Murphy or give in to the curiosity towards what she’d figured out.

“I was kissing you, and you were thinking about Murphy’s _tone_?” he finally asked, and Harper rolled her eyes again.

“I wasn’t thinking about it now,” she amended.  “But I figured it out.”

Monty sighed, leaning back against the wall.  “How?”

“It’s the same as yours.”

He squinted at her, cocking his head.  “So you think…?”

“Do I have to spell it out for you?” Harper asked.  “Murphy’s in love with Clarke.”

Monty stared at her for a minute before laughing.  “That’s ridiculous,” he said.  “Murphy’s not in love with Clarke.  She’s in love with Bellamy.”

“You can be in love with someone who’s in love with someone else,” Harper pointed out, grabbing a tablet from the bedside table and flopping on the bed.  “I’ll prove it.”

Monty sighed, climbing on beside her.  “So I guess this means we’re not having sex?”

“Not until you believe me.”

It took a while, clips from before and after the change, some as soon as a few days before, but Monty eventually agree. 

“Okay, fine,” he said, taking the tablet from her and dropping it to the floor.  “Murphy’s in love with Clarke.  Are you ready to stop thinking about it now?”

“Yes.”  Harper gave him a triumphant grin before leaning over to kiss him.  They were still half naked, and maybe debating whether their friend was in love with their other friend or not shouldn’t have been a tits out kind of conversation, but that’s the way it had worked out.

Monty kissed her back, his arm wrapping around her to tug her closer, and all thoughts of Clarke and Murphy disappeared from her head.

They were completely naked when another thought hit her.

“Oh,” Harper sighed, pushing up on her elbows to look down the bed at Monty.  “Bellamy.”

Monty froze for a moment before pushing up, frowning at her from between her legs.  “Yeah, no,” he said.  “Not Bellamy.  It’s Monty?  You know, your fiancé?”

“No,” Harper said, shaking her head.  “I didn’t mean that.  I mean, how’s Bellamy gonna take it?”

Monty sighed, heaving himself up the bed and falling back on his pillow.  “I’m gonna go out on a limb here and say sex isn’t happening tonight.”

 

**983 APF**

So Murphy’s message hadn’t come as a shock to Harper.

She’d spent the last month wondering what Murphy was thinking.  There had been two options she and a more reluctant Monty had come up with, reasons why they hadn’t had their suspicions confirmed over the radio.

The first was that Murphy hadn’t figured it out yet.  It was the most likely option, really, because Murphy had always been shit with feelings.  Monty had speculated that he wouldn’t figure it out until something drastic happened and he was forced to face his feelings.

The second was that Murphy had figured it out and had also figured out what it meant, that his feelings having any chance at being reciprocated meant that Clarke had to fall out of love with Bellamy first.  And while Harper knew that being alone with each other save for the kids made those chances rise, Clarke and Bellamy were Clarke and Bellamy.  She’d be shocked if they didn’t spend the rest of their lives together.

It’d turned out to be both.  From the radio call, he’d seemed to have only recently figured it out, if the panic in his voice was anything to go off.  He’d also definitely figured out how hopeless it was with Clarke being as in love with Bellamy as Murphy claimed she was.

Harper couldn’t help but feel for him.

They’d laid in bed after the call had ended, and Harper pushed down the bit of vindication she’d felt at his announcement.

“Holy shit,” Monty had whispered, turning to look at her.  “You were actually right.”

Harper had gasped, her vindication falling away at Monty’s words.  “You said you believed me!”

Monty had shrugged.  “I thought agreeing with you would get us back to sex faster,” he’d said, and Harper had hit him with her pillow.  “I mean, I know now that I was wrong, but…”

Harper had ignored the completely unforgivable act of lying to her in exchange for listening through the walls for any sign of Bellamy, any indication of how he was taking this admission.  They hadn’t heard anything, no doors opening, no banging, no noise of any kind, but that didn’t really mean anything one way or another.

Which lead to now, sitting at the kitchen table with Raven and Echo, their breakfast algae long finished as they waited for Bellamy to finally emerge from his room.

Raven had apparently tried to talk to him the night before.  His door had been locked and he hadn’t answered when she’d knocked, but she wasn’t at the stage of worry yet to disengage the locks and forcibly go in.

So they waited.

Harper knew Bellamy already wasn’t taking the whole being separated from Clarke and Seph thing very well.  She knew he was trying really hard to stop thinking of Murphy as some sort of competition, as someone who was getting everything he wanted while he had to listen from space.  She knew he already hated everything about the whole situation.

So now?  Murphy not only raising Bellamy’s daughter, sleeping in bed with the girl Bellamy was in love with, getting to be there for them when he couldn’t, but also being in love with Clarke?  When they still had over two years before it’d be safe for them to go back to Earth?  Harper didn’t know how he was going to take that.

Echo suggested a round of cards—“Space games are still dumb but so is sitting here doing nothing.”—and Monty had dealt them out.  It was Harper’s DJ day, but not even Echo had complained about the lack of background noise.  Bellamy still hadn’t even emerged from his room.  She wasn’t about to make whatever he was thinking worse by blasting Clarke and Murphy’s voices around the Ark.

They’d played three rounds of poker by the time the sound of footsteps came from down the hall, and Harper shared a glance with Raven across the table.

Bellamy walked into the room without looking at any of them, heading over to where the algae was stored.  His hair was a mess, but there wasn’t anything else about him that gave them any clue as to how he was doing.

“Hey, Bellamy,” Harper hedged.  “How’s it going?”

“Good.”  Bellamy turned around, bowl of algae in hand, and flashed them a smile.

Harper smiled back before looking to Raven again as he made his way to the table.  Did he not hear the message somehow?  She’d been ready for screaming or sulking or cursing out Murphy or honestly anything else, but smiling?

“What’re we playing?” Bellamy asked, putting down his bowl and glancing around the table.

“Poker,” Echo said, and no one pointed out that this was the only time she’d ever called a card game by the right name.

“Great.”  Bellamy grinned again, and Harper noticed it looked a little crazy, a little wild, not quite meeting his eyes.  “Deal me in.”

Monty dealt him in, and they started the next round.  Harper glanced at her fiancé, who shook is head and mouthed, “Denial?”

“So,” Echo said after a few minutes.  “You slept in.  What was that about?”

Bellamy shrugged, more focused on his cards than he usually was.  “I just had a really good sleep.”

The dark circles under his eyes begged to differ, but no one mentioned them.

It was a while later before anyone spoke, and only because Harper had been kicking Raven’s leg under the table long enough and hard enough that she swore.

“We heard the message last night, too,” Raven said, sending Harper a look.

Bellamy froze for a moment before moving again, focused even more on rearranging his cards in his hand.

“And?”

Raven’s eyes darted over to Harper again, and she shrugged.  “And how are you doing?”

“I’m great.”  Bellamy looked up from his cards to give them another grin, another one that was a bit too wide and didn’t quite meet his eyes.  “Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Because Murphy just confessed to being in love with Clarke,” Harper said, and Bellamy’s grin faltered before growing bigger.

“It was a joke,” he said, using a hand to physically wave off their concerns and looking back down at his cards.  “Like when he confessed to Monty.  He didn’t mean it.”

Harper shared a look with the others again.  They’d all heard the message.  Harper had seen the signs before, but, even if she hadn’t, there was no way Murphy had the acting capability to fake the vulnerability and desperation in his voice.  There was no way Murphy hadn’t meant every word he’d said.

Raven sighed, placing down her cards.  “Bellamy—”

“No.”  Bellamy dropped his own cards, turning to look at Raven, the eerie smile still on his face.  “He didn’t mean it.  I’m fine.”  He pushed away from the table.  “I’m going for a jog.”

They watched him disappear back into the hall in silence.  He’d left his algae on the table, mostly uneaten, and Harper made a note to make sure he ate later if he was going to go back to his jogs.

“Well,” Echo said, breaking the silence.  “He’s in denial.”  She dropped her cards on the table.  “I win.”

 

**985 APF**

Telling the void hadn’t done anything.  It hadn’t gotten Murphy any help.  It hadn’t gotten him to fall out of love with Clarke.  It hadn’t made any of this any easier.

It hadn’t done anything.

If Murphy had thought anyone might have actually heard his embarrassing confession that he actually felt things, he might’ve regretted making the call.  But no one could hear, so it really didn’t matter.

What mattered was that being in love with Clarke—or, rather, knowing he’s in love with Clarke and accepting it—was terrifying.

He loved people and then they died.  He loved his parents, and they were both dead.  He loved Emori, and she was dead.  He loved Max, and he’d died before he’d even had a chance to be born.

He was already terrified of how loving Clarke and the girls would lead to their deaths.  The Grounder that’d tried to kill them had been less of a shock and more of an inevitability.

And that was when he’d just loved Clarke as a general kind of thing.  He hadn’t realized he was in love with her yet, not then.

Being in love with Clarke was terrifying because the people he loved died.

It was also terrifying because Clarke didn’t love him back.

Murphy had dated exactly two people in his life.  Monty barely counted, but adding him to the list made it look slightly less sad. 

With Emori, it’d been easy.  Well, not easy exactly, but not complicated.  They met.  She held him hostage.  He fell hard.  They left Jaha, and the rest was basically history.  It was easy.

Emori hadn’t been in love with anyone else.  Him falling in love with her had only been a relatively stupid decision because she’d been holding a knife to his neck at the time.  Not because they were raising kids together.  Not because being in love with her could mean messing up their entire family.  Not because she was in love with someone else, someone who loved her back and who was coming back for her in a few years.

Monty had been easy, too.  Monty had asked him out, and then Murphy had confessed his love three dates later.  Love that he was pretty sure he hadn’t felt until they started dating.

Because Murphy fell hard and he fell fast.  It was dumb because feelings were dumb, so he usually ignored his feelings.  When he’d had crushes growing up, he’d dealt with it by avoiding the person as much as possible until the crush went away.  When he hooked up with people in the Skybox, it was always only once, and then he’d avoid them until any potential feelings disappeared.

He didn’t do feelings, because when he did, he felt everything.

Which was what was happening now.

There was no way he could avoid Clarke until his feelings went away.  No fucking way.

And he didn’t want to.

Because he loved her.

So why would he want to spend any less time with her than he could even if he had the option?

At this point, there were a couple ways he could deal with it.

The first was to try to ignore his feelings until they went away.  It hadn’t been successful so far, but there was no telling what the future could do.

He was pretty sure that was bullshit.  He was in love with Clarke, and, as terrifying as that was, it didn’t seem like it was going to change any time soon.

The second option was to accept it, which he’d already mostly done, and also accept the fact that Clarke didn’t feel the same way and probably never would.

That was harder.  He loved her and they had their family and he spent every night wrapped around her.  Sometimes he almost forgot they weren’t actually together.

But she loved Bellamy, not him.

Option three was probably the worst morally, which was probably why it was his favourite.

The third option was to try to get Clarke to feel the same way.

None of this situation was fair.  It wasn’t fair that Emori died.  It wasn’t fair that Clarke and Bellamy were in love but never told each other.  It wasn’t fair to Bellamy that Murphy was the one raising his kid and being with Clarke when he couldn’t be.  It wasn’t fair that Murphy had fallen in love with Clarke when she was in love with someone else.

So was it any less fair for Murphy try to win her over when Bellamy wasn’t even on the same planet?

He turned off the speaker, the music cutting off and leaving only the sounds of the crickets and whatever other animals hadn’t gone to sleep yet, and glanced over at Clarke.

She was standing near the edge of their clearing on top of the hill, looking out over the lake, her breath coming in puffs in the cold air.  The bioluminescent fish were out, leaving glittering trails in their wake as they swam around under the ice.  They were pretty, Murphy supposed, but they were fish.  They weren’t that special.

He crossed the distance between them, wrapping his arms around her waist and relishing in the way she leaned back into him.

“Ready for bed?” he whispered, lips close to her ear.  The way she shivered brought a smirk to his face, even though it probably wasn’t anything more than a subconscious reaction to his breath against her skin, or maybe not even that.  Maybe she was just cold.

She agreed and they slipped back into the house.  He was tempted to make some sort of move while they changed into their pyjamas, but he wanted this to work.  If he wanted anything to ever happen between him and Clarke, he had to make it happen in a way that didn’t jeopardize what they already had.  He couldn’t just kiss her, as easy and amazing as that would be.  He couldn’t just bare his soul, tell her how he felt.  He had to be stealthy.

They crawled into bed, and he curled up around her.  He hesitated for a second, then silently cursed himself out for it, and then finally raised a hand, gently brushing her hair from her frozen face with an equally frozen hand.  He let his fingers linger on her temple, her skin soft under his, and her brows drew closer together the longer they held each other’s gaze.

He finally let them drop, trailing along the strands at the side of her face.

“Night, Clarke,” he whispered, tugging her closer and pressing a kiss to her temple.

Her breath stuttered and it took her a moment to respond.

“Night, John.”

Murphy didn’t fall asleep right away, and he could tell Clarke didn’t either.  He wasn’t sure what her reasons were, but his were plain and simple.

He’d only dated two people in his life.  Monty had asked him out, and he couldn’t quite remember just how he and Emori had eventually become a thing, but he’d already been hopelessly in love with her and she’d almost definitely been the one to make the first move.  Even in the Skybox, all the hookups he could think of had been because the other person had shown interest first.

Not Murphy.

He was never the one to make the first move.

So, really, even if Clarke wasn’t completely, entirely, award winning movie in love with Bellamy, he’d still be fucked.

Because how, exactly, were you supposed to go about wooing someone?

 

**986 APF**

Murphy had been acting weird.

It’d been going on for the last week and a half or so, and Clarke couldn’t for the life of her figure out what had happened to initiate the change.

But he’d been weird.

He’d be almost avoiding her one minute and then trailing her like a lost puppy the next.  He’d be avoiding touching her, jerking his hand back like she was going to burn him, except for when he was clinging to her like he thought she was going to disappear.  There were more than a few times that she’d turned to look at him and she would have sworn he’d fucking blushed.

And then there was last night, when he’d brushed away her hair and stared at her like he was trying desperately to tell her something with just his eyes.  And then he’d kissed her, his lips pressed against her skin too long for it to really be considered a peck, and then just said goodnight like that was something he’d always done.  Clarke still didn’t know what the fuck any of that was about.

She didn’t know what any of it was about, really.  She’d tried asking him about it a few times, tried subtly interrogating him to find out why he was being so weird.  But he’d change the subject, move them onto another topic as quickly as possible, and it wouldn’t come up again.

So she’d given up trying to ask what the fuck was going on with him.  He’d tell her if and when he wanted to tell her, and she’d just have to try to not dwell on it.

Which was easier said and done, because he’d apparently decided to kick the weirdness up a notch this morning.

It hadn’t started weird.  Well, sure, he’d been skittish and that was weird, but it was the same level of weirdness he’d had so it hadn’t quite registered as weird.

Like right now, for example, he was braiding her hair.

Which wouldn’t be weird in and of itself.  No.  Murphy had learned to braid hair back while they were still in the lab, when they’d learned that Seph was going to be a girl.  He’d declared that he needed to know how to style her hair or he’d be the worst uncle in the world.  Clarke was still pretty sure he’d just been bored and stir-crazy, but the fact that he could help with hair was always a plus.

But anyway.  He was braiding her hair.

But he wasn’t, not really.

They were on the couch.  He was tucked into a corner, one leg stretched along it and the other foot resting on the ground, and she was leaning up against him.  Madi was trying to teach Seph how to do a summersault on the floor, and the fire was crackling.

It was warm and cozy, and the feeling of Murphy’s fingers drifting through her hair was nearly putting her to sleep.

It’d be one thing if he seemed to have any intention to actually braid her hair.  If he was actually doing any braiding, his fingers would be finished soon and she’d be able to force herself to sit up and wake up and actually do something.

As it was, he was just running his fingers through it, brushing through the knots and scratching at her scalp. It was soothing as fuck and she found herself leaning back into his hands, resting more of her weight against him.

“Mommy, look!”

Clarke peeled her eyes open, turning her head to look at the kids.  Madi was holding Seph up by her ankles, the toddler’s hands planted on the floor as she giggled, her face turning purple.

“She’s doing a handstand!” Madi explained, like the situation wasn’t obvious.

“That’s great,” Clarke told her, grinning at her daughters.  “Don’t do it for too long, though, or too much blood will go to her head.”

“Okay,” Madi said, and let go.

Seph tumbled to the ground, but laughed rather than cried, so Clarke figured she was alright.  Seph was a tough kid.

“Don’t hurt your sister,” Murphy said, and then his fingers were moving through her hair again, and Clarke’s eyes were drifting shut.

“Are you ever going to actually braid it?” she mumbled, too relaxed to raise her voice anymore.  “Or are you just going to play with it all day?”

“Is that an option?” Murphy asked, and Clarke snorted.  He was quiet again for long enough that Clarke started to wonder if his question had actually been serious.

“You’ve got a lot of knots,” he finally said, and Clarke rolled her closed eyes.  Any knots that’d been in her hair had been worked out by his fingers a good half hour ago.

“Sure,” she agreed, and she could feel his quiet laugh against her back.

“Your hair’s really soft,” he told her a bit later, and Clarke laughed.

“I thought you said it was full of knots,” she pointed out.

“It was,” he said.  “And now it’s soft.  You’re welcome.”

He sounded a little put off for some reason Clarke couldn’t comprehend, but his fingers were still brushing though her hair, gently tugging the strands now into whatever braid creation he’d finally settled on, and she drifted off before she could question him.

*********

Wooing Clarke was about as hard as he’d initially thought it’d be.  He’d tried complementing her more, but she just kind of laughed and moved on.  Which, fair.  His complements had been kinda weird.

_Your face is…nice,_ he’d said that morning, and she’d asked if there was drool on it.

_You are really good at stirring_ had received a _fuck you do it yourself then_ while they were making breakfast.

_Your hair is soft_.  What was he thinking?  He’d literally just told her it was full of knots.

_I like your socks._   That one was pretty self-explanatory, but it got worse.  Had he checked what socks she was wearing first?  No, because that was what someone who actually had any amount of game would do.  What socks was she wearing, you ask?  Oh, a pair of his that were full of socks.  And how had she responded to the compliment?  By rolling her eyes and ripping them off and throwing them at his face with a _fine, take them back._

So, really.  The flirting wasn’t going all that well.

The rest wasn’t going much better.

He really wasn’t sure what his game plan was with the whole braiding thing beyond wanting an excuse to play with her hair.  Not that he’d really needed an excuse before, but now it felt like he needed one.  Feelings were dumb like that.

Anyway, he’d gotten to play with her hair.  He wasn’t fully sure what his goal had been, but her falling asleep on him had not been it.  As great as that was, she really couldn’t fall in love with him in her sleep.

So.  The compliments were not working.  They already sang together a lot, and, considering she hadn’t fallen in love with him through that yet, it was probably safe to say he shouldn’t rely on that alone.  Flowers were an obvious choice, but it was winter.  There weren’t any flowers.  They’d run out of chocolate from the lab a while back, so unless they decided to make another trip there, that was out of the question.

And beyond that?  Movies and TV really hadn’t prepared him for the whole _trying to make the girl you’re platonically raising a family with in the middle of a postapocalyptic snowstorm fall in love with you_ thing.

He honestly had no idea what to do.

Maybe the big stuff would have to wait until the spring.  The spring would have flowers and generally more opportunities for wooing.

The winter?  There was a show or a movie or something they’d watched once where the characters had to have sex or they’d freeze to death.  It had been hot, for sure, but definitely not realistic.  And, even if it had been, if they were in the position to be freezing to death, so sex to stay alive was definitely not an option when they would also be trying to keep the kids alive

Other than that, he really didn’t know what the winter had that was romantic.  Ice skating, he guessed.  Snowball fights and throwing each other in the snow could be considered a little romantic, too.

But any of that they’d done a hundred times before and would be doing with the girls.  Murphy might not have had any game, but he was pretty sure you weren’t supposed to drag your kids along while trying to get their mom to fall in love with you.

So the major wooing would have to wait.  Which was okay.  It gave him time to try to come up with ideas.  He could stick with the more minor stuff right now.

Clarke shifted in her sleep, her face turning into his neck, and Murphy brushed his fingers along her cheek.

He didn’t know whether wooing her would work.  So far it hadn’t, but it’d only been a few hours since he’d decided to try.

She shifted again, curling closer, and he wrapped his arms around her, pressing a kiss to the top of her head.

Fuck.  He was fucked.  Clarke didn’t love him, not this way, and he was so fucking fucked.

 

**988 APF**

“Night, Clarke,” Murphy whispered, pressing a kiss against her temple.

Apparently this was a thing now.  Clarke didn’t know where it’d come from or why, but apparently Murphy was kissing her goodnight now.

“Night, John,” she whispered back.

She paused for a moment, considering, before turning her head, her lips brushing in a light kiss against the bit of his collarbone that was sticking out of his sleepshirt.  His breathing stuttered under her cheek for a moment before evening out again.

“Goodnight,” he said again, voice even quieter than before, his arm tightening around her.

Clarke still didn’t know why he was acting weird, but he’d tell her when he wanted to.  And if goodnight kisses were going to be a part of their new normal, she supposed it could be a lot worse.

 

**989 APF**

Bellamy was not doing well.

Of course, he’d never so much as said so.  If you asked him, he’d repeat what seemed to be his new mantra.

_I’m fine.  He was joking.  He didn’t mean it.  I’m fine.  I’m going for a jog._

If the time they’d thought Clarke—and Murphy, but who was she trying to kid?  Bellamy hadn’t been mourning like that for Murphy—was dead hadn’t been burned into her mind, Raven might think this was as low as Bellamy could get.

But, as it was, she didn’t think she could ever forget how terrible he’d looked then.

Right now, Bellamy wasn’t anywhere near that level, but he was getting there.

She wasn’t sure he slept.  He spent most of his time jogging around the ship or challenging them to so much DDR that Monty had actually collapsed one time.  Raven had walked in on him replaying the message more times than she could count, but he’d always close it as soon as he saw her and grin too wide and pretend it was something else.  He would only eat more than a few bites when he knew someone was watching.

None of it was anywhere near as bad as it’d been when he’d thought he’d lost Clarke, but Raven didn’t believe for a minute that he was as fine as he said he was.

He wouldn’t talk about it.  Not to her, not to Harper, not to Monty.  Echo was pretty confident that talking was the wrong method, so she refused to try.

At this point, Raven was starting to agree with her.  If he hadn’t talked yet, was he ever going to?  What was it going to take to get him to say something?  To even admit that he wasn’t fine?

She watched him leave after lunch for another jog, his bowl still mostly full of algae, and sighed.

“So,” she said, turning to look across the table.  “You said you had a better idea?”

Echo glanced up from her own algae, grinning widely.  “Oh yeah,” she said.  “I’ll get him crying like a baby by dinner.”

Raven shared a look with Harper and Monty, who shrugged.  And honestly, yeah.  If sending Echo to make Bellamy cry was what it took to get him to admit he wasn’t fine, then she guessed that that was how they were doing things.

*********

Bellamy skidded to a halt, narrowly avoiding running Echo down.

“What?” he asked, and she responded by throwing a handful of rags at his face.

“Wrap up,” she told him, turning and stalking down the hall.  “We’re training.”

He resisted rolling his eyes and followed after her, already wrapping the rags over his hands.  Did he want to train right no?  No.  But if he didn’t train, then Raven or Harper or Monty would find out, and they’d think he wasn’t fine and they’d want to talk.  Again.

Which was dumb.  He was fine.  He was more than fine.  He was doing great.  Never better.

But whatever.  They didn’t need to believe that for it to be true.

His hands were wrapped by the time they reached the designated training room, and he dodged Echo’s first punch as he stepped through the door.

They sparred a while, until Bellamy was dripping with sweat and his hands were sore. 

“You’re holding back,” Echo told him, throwing another punch.

He managed to dodge it, using her momentum to tug her off balance.  “I’m not holding back.”

“Yes, you are.”  She’d been anticipating the tug, using it to lead into a kick at his ribs.  “You’re holding back.  You’re distracted.”

“I’m not distracted.”  Bellamy sent out another punch to make his point, and Echo caught it to make hers.  He twisted out of her grip.  “I’m fine.”

“You’re fine?” Echo repeated, swinging at his head.  He blocked her with his forearm, already anticipating the hook swing coming from her other hand.  “Really?  So you’re fine that you’ve never met your daughter?”

Bellamy hadn’t been expecting that.  Echo usually didn’t talk during sparring, nothing more than a few taunts.  But this?  This was out of nowhere, so out of nowhere that he missed the next punch, her fist connecting with his jaw hard enough that he had to spit blood onto the floor.

“What?”

He snapped out of his shock in time to block her next attack, but a well-placed forearm couldn’t stop her words from hitting.

“You’re fine that Murphy’s been raising her this whole time?”

He blocked her next hit, countered it with one of his own, gritting out a response though his teeth and pounding jaw.  “Shut up.”

“You’re fine that she calls him Papa?”  There was a glint in Echo’s eye, one that he couldn’t figure out the meaning of.  “That he’s more of a dad to her than you right now?”

“Shut up.”

Her physical attacks came with vocal ones, every fear he had being laid out with a blow he only barely managed to block in time.

“You’re fine that he sleeps in bed with Clarke?  That they’ve done everything together for the last two and a half years?”

“Shut up.”

Again and again and again.

“You’re fine that he’s in love with her?”

“Shut up.”

“You’re fine that you’re not there to compete with that?”

“Shut.  Up.”

“He’s raising your daughter, Bellamy.  He and Clarke are basically together already.  How do you compete with that from space?”

“ _Shut.  Up.”_

“You’re telling me you’re fine?  Are you fine with her falling in love with him?”

“Shut up!” he screamed, sidestepping her kick and sending one of her own into the side of her stomach.

Echo didn’t waste time, flipping him over her shoulder and pressing him into the ground.

“You’re not fine, Bellamy,” she growled in his ear, pushing against him as he struggled.  “You’re mad and you’re jealous and you’re allowed to be.  You’re allowed to hate him and want to punch him in the face.”

She released him, and Bellamy lay there for a minute, all the hate and the jealousy and every other fucked up feeling he’d been pushing down bubbling up to the surface.

He let Echo pull him up, swaying on his feet as he tried to reign his emotions back in.

“But he’s not here,” she told him, falling back into a ready stance.  “You’re gonna have to settle for me.  So suck it the fuck up, and hit me like you mean it.”

Bellamy stood there a moment longer, weighing his options.

He wasn’t fine.  He wasn’t fooling anyone else, so why was he still pretending he was fooling himself?

Was this healthy?  No, probably not.

But he threw out a kick anyway, swiping at Echo’s knees.  She dodged it with a wicked grin and punched him in the gut.

*********

Raven was playing cards with Harper and Monty when Echo re-entered the kitchen for some water.  There was a bruise blooming on one of her eyes, her arms littered with smaller bruises and cuts.

They’d heard the yells, the sounds of skin hitting skin and metal, and had quietly wondered whether they should interrupt.

“Told you I could fix it,” Echo told them, sipping at her water.  “I’m gonna go shower.”

*********

Bellamy hadn’t wanted to bother anyone.  He’d thought that maybe sparring with Echo would have been good enough, that he could let out some emotions with her and then go back to pretending he wasn’t having them.

Maybe he’d gone a bit overboard during the sparring, but it wasn’t like Echo hadn’t given as good as he had.

He wasn’t going to bother anyone.

But then he was laying in bed, and all the thoughts, all the insecurities and jealousies Echo had thrown at him, came back and he couldn’t sleep, couldn’t lay still, and he found himself leaving his room.

And now he was opening Raven’s door.

She pushed up in bed, blinking at him against the light shining in from the hallway.

“What’s up?” she asked, her voice thick with sleep, and Bellamy felt like a dick for waking her up.

He was going to apologize, to tell her it was nothing.  He was going to go back to his room and go to bed.

But then she flicked on her light, and he could tell when she saw the cuts and the bruises from his sparring with Echo, the dried tear tracks that were probably streaked through them, and his only thought was wondering why he hadn’t made the time to shower yet.

And then his feet were crossing the room without his permission, sinking onto her bed next to her.

“I’m not fine,” he whispered, staring down at the bed.

Raven nodded, scooting closer so she could wrap an arm around his shoulders.  “I know.”

He didn’t look up at her, picking at a spot on her blanket instead.  “Do you think he meant it?”

Raven was quiet for a long moment, running a hand over his arm.  He wasn’t sure what she was thinking, because he’d known since the first time he’d heard the message that Murphy had meant it.  It hadn’t been a joke, like when he’d proclaimed his love for Monty.  There was no way any of that had been a joke.

“Yeah,” Raven finally said, and Bellamy felt something crumble.  “I think he meant it.”

“I just—” Bellamy broke off, running a hand over his face.  What was he even wanting to say?  What was he even trying to get out of this conversation?  “What do you think she feels?”

Raven tightened her arm around him, resting her chin on his shoulder.  “She loves you.”

Bellamy shook his head, his throat closing up.  “I don’t know that.”

“Yes, you do,” Raven told him.  “Everyone can hear it in the way she talks to you, Bellamy.  Even before Praimfaya.  She loves you.”

She didn’t add that they knew that for sure now.  Murphy had said it explicitly, that he couldn’t keep being in love with Clarke because she was in love with Bellamy.  He knew she knew he’d been listening to the message more than enough to know that that was in there, but he appreciated that she didn’t want to give him another reminder of how much better Murphy knew Clarke right now than he did.

“Do you think she might stop?” he asked, his voice such a quiet, broken whisper that he hardly recognized it.

Raven paused for too long, long enough that Bellamy was starting to fear her answer.

“Do you want the truth?” she finally asked.

No.

“Yeah.”

“I think she loves you,” she said.  “I think she loves you so fucking much, Bellamy.  I honestly can’t think of anyone who would be better together than you and her.”  She paused, sighing.  “But.”

“But,” he repeated, nodding, because that was really all there was to say.

But he wasn’t on Earth.

But he wouldn’t see her again for another few years.

But he was stuck up in space while Murphy got to be down there with her.

She loved him.  She loved Bellamy.

But Murphy was the one with her.

But Murphy was the one raising a family with her.

But Murphy was there.

And he wasn’t.

“I hate him,” he whispered, squeezing his eyes shut, hating how true the words were, hating the burning pit in his gut that his thoughts of Murphy had turned into.  “I hate him.”

Raven’s arms tightened around him, holding him close as he broke.

 

**1012 APF**

The girls were running around on the ice-covered lake, laughing and slipping, and Clarke was next to Murphy by the edge, bundled up and sipping on tea.

Another shiver rippled through Clarke, and she could tell Murphy had noticed when he raised his arm.

“Come on,” he said, grinning at her, his nose bright red.  “You’re cold.  I’m cold.  We might as well share body heat.”

Clarke rolled her eyes and moved closer, tucking herself into his side.  He was right.  She was already feeling slightly less like she was going to get hypothermia.

“How much longer before we can force them inside?” Murphy asked, and Clarke shrugged.

“How much longer before we just pick them up and pack them in ourselves?” she countered, and he laughed.

It wasn’t much longer before Madi was screaming for them, and they were scrambling and tumbling across the ice, cold forgotten.

“What is it?” Clarke asked once they finally reached the girls—or, rather, once Madi had gotten impatient of waiting for them and dragged her sister their way.

Madi shot her a look and then glanced down at Seph, and Clarke followed her gaze.

“Oh,” she said.  “Shit.”

Seph glanced up at them, awkwardly with the log that was around her neck, and grinned.

“Stuck,” she said, and Clarke nodded.

“You definitely are stuck,” Murphy agreed.  “Why is your head in a log?”

“I found it,” Madi said.  “And my head wouldn’t fit in the hole, but now we can’t get hers out.”

Clarke nodded again.  “Right.  Okay.  Can you help her get back to the house?”

“Yep!” Madi grabbed Seph’s arm, guiding her across the lake.

“What is with kids and sticking their heads in holes?” Murphy grumbled as they slowly slid back towards the shore.  “Didn’t we just unstick Madi’s head from a tree last week?”

“And Seph’s from the fence the week before that.”  Clarke rolled her eyes, shuffling another step ahead.  “You’d think our kids would be smarter.”

“Well,” Murphy laughed, turning to look at her.  “Seph _is_ half Bellamy.”

“Fuck off.” 

Clarke shoved him, sending him tumbling off balance, and he managed to grab her arm as he fell and pull her down with her.

She brushed the snow off her face, giving him her best unimpressed look.  “I hate you.”

He stuck out his tongue at her.  “No, you don’t.”

 

**1036 APF**

Bellamy still wasn’t doing great, but he was doing better.

Any thought of Murphy, the sound of his voice, anything that reminded of him, turned his stomach and filled him with so much jealousy and anger that even he was embarrassed with himself.

He was angry.  He was angry at the universe and Praimfaya and space and everything.  And he was angry at Murphy, for getting to be with Clarke and Seph and on Earth, for getting everything that he wanted but couldn’t have.

The jealousy was stupid.  It was a garbage emotion that he usually prided himself on never feeling.

But he was feeling it, and it wouldn’t go away.

He hated Murphy, for everything he got that he couldn’t have, not for another few years, for falling in love with Clarke.

It was stupid, to be jealous of Murphy.  Bellamy wasn’t with Clarke.  He loved her, so fucking much, but they weren’t together.  And he was pretty sure Clarke loved him too.  Almost certain, really.

But they weren’t together.

Murphy was in love with Clarke, and, if Clarke decided she didn’t want to wait for him any longer, there was nothing stopping her from falling in love with Murphy, too.

Which was why he hated him so much, as much as he tried not to.

Murphy was there.  Murphy was with Clarke, and Bellamy wasn’t.  He wasn’t there, and it killed him.

So he hated Murphy, because it was easy and because he was so angry and jealous and sad.

So he hated him.

He was better, though, when they first got word that Murphy had fallen in love.  He was eating and talking about his feelings, and Raven and Echo (and less often and slightly more awkwardly Harper and Monty) were down to shit talk Murphy whenever he was in a particularly shitty mood.

He didn’t want to think about it, how much it’d kill him if Clarke decided to move on, so he didn’t think about it.

Or, rather, he tried not to.  The thoughts still snuck in sometimes, late at night when he was in bed.

He hated Murphy, and generally tried not to think about it.

He was trying to be positive, he really was.  There was nothing he could do about the situation, so he had to deal with it.

He was going to deal with it, whether _it_ continued to be what was basically nothing or turned into an actual something.

He’d deal with it.

He leaned forward, balancing his elbows on his knees and running a hand through his hair, and let out a breath.

A knock came on his door, and he glanced up.

Harper offered him a smile.  “Me and Echo are gonna play Dance Dance if you want to join,” she said.  “Monty and Raven are fixing something, and I could use some actual competition.”

He smiled back, knowing it probably didn’t reach his eyes, and pushed to his feet.

“Echo’s been practicing in secret,” he told her.  “I think she’s planning an ambush one day.”

Harper laughed.  “Which is exactly why we need more practice.”

 

**1052 APF**

“Where’re the kids?”

Clarke glanced up from her drawing, shading her eyes from the sun that shined just to the left of Murphy.

“In the woods.”

Murphy laughed, turning and dropping down beside her.  “Did Madi kidnap Seph again?” he asked, and Clarke snorted.  “Because we should really have a talk about kidnapping if that’s the case.”

“I’m pretty sure Seph went willingly this time, so I think we’re good,” Clarke assured him, and Murphy grinned at her.

“What’re you drawing?”

Clarke glanced back down at her paper, at the rough sketch penciled there.  “The girls,” she said, adding another line to Madi’s hair.

She could see Murphy from the corner of her eye, watched his mouth open and close like he was going to say something.  She didn’t ask, though, because he was still acting kind of weird and she’d decided she wasn’t going to press him on that until he wanted to talk about it, and this was definitely something that fell under the category of weird.

He was saved from having to decide whether he was going to say whatever it was by crashing in the woods behind them.

“She brought her back this time,” Clarke said, laying down her drawing on her lap and stretching out her legs.  “I think that’s progress.”

“Mommy!  Papa!”

“We’re over here!” Murphy called, and then the crashing got louder as they came closer.

“Look!” Seph yelled, somehow managing to reach them first and jumping into Clarke’s lap.  “We found it!”

“Found what?  Clarke asked, an arm wrapping around her daughter as she turned to look for Madi and whatever they’d found.

“Holy shit,” Murphy said, and, yeah, that about summed it up.

“I found my dog!” Madi announced, grinning widely.  She dropped down to her knees, a squirming ball of grey fur in her arms.  “Remember my dog?”

Clarke glanced over at Murphy, eyes wide.  “What do you mean, remember?” she asked.  “You’ve never mentioned a dog.”

Madi rolled her eyes, adjusting her grip on what was probably a fucking wolf puppy that very clearly did not want to be in the arms of an eight year old.  “Yes, I have.”

“When?” Murphy asked, and Clarke could tell he was also trying to figure out how their daughters had managed to get a hold of a fucking wolf puppy and how they could convince them that there was no fucking way they were keeping it.

Madi shrugged.  “All the time.”

“Yeah, Papa,” Seph agreed, her arms wrapped around Clarke’s neck as she hung backwards towards him.  “All the time.”

Clarke shot another look at Murphy, who reached forward.  “Let me see it,” he said, and Madi sighed before helping transfer the bundle of fur to him.

“Are you sure that’s your dog?” Clarke asked, leaning over to look at it.  It was really cute, she’d give the kids that.  “I think that’s a wolf puppy.”

“Yeah,” Madi agreed, reaching out to scratch at the wolf’s head.  It pressed up into her hand, tongue lolling out of its mouth, and Clarke was pretty sure they were already losing the battle against keeping a wild animal in their house.  “It’s Wolf Puppy.  She’s my dog.”

Clarke eyed Murphy again.  “Okay,” she said slowly, trying not to commit to anything before they could figure out how to get the girls to give up their new dog.  “What’s her name?”

Madi huffed, sinking back on her heels.  “I just told you.”

Clarke’s eyebrows drew together, and she glanced over at Murphy again.

“Wolf Puppy?” he said after a few minutes, and Madi rolled her eyes again.

“Yes!”

“Her name is Wolf Puppy?”

“Duh.”  Madi rolled her eyes.  And then she was upright again, bouncing on her toes in front of Murphy.  “Can we keep her?  Please?”

“Please?” Seph echoed, releasing Clarke to plead with Murphy too.

“I, uh.”  Murphy glanced over at Clarke, fingers still brushing though Wolf Puppy’s fur, and gave her a sheepish grin.  Of course he’d already caved.  Like he could ever say no to their girls.  “Ask your mom.”

The girls were in front of her then, hands clutched in front of their faces as they chanted _please_ over and over.

Clarke looked to Murphy again, the puppy in his arms now licking his face, and he shrugged at her.  She sighed, looking back at the girls.

“If she tries to eat us, she’s gone,” Clarke said, and they were already squealing, jumping on her and throwing their arms around her neck.

“Thank you, Mommy!” Madi yelled, squeezing her tightly.  “Thank you, thank you, thank you!”

Seph just squealed, rubbing her face against Clarke’s hair.

And then Madi was pulling Wolf Puppy from Murphy’s arms and the girls were running off towards the house.

“You can sleep in our bed, Wolf Puppy,” she was saying.  “Mommy and Papa don’t let animals in their bedroom, cause they don’t want pee in their bed, but you can be in our room.”

The door slammed shut, and Murphy laughed.

“What?” Clarke asked, and he grinned at her, shaking his head.

“I can’t believe you’re letting them bring a wild animal into our house,” he said, and Clarke rolled her eyes, reaching over to shove him.

“We already let Madi in,” she pointed out, and he laughed again.  “That turned out pretty well.”

“It did,” he agreed, flopping back to lay on the ground.  “Holy shit, Clarke.  We have a dog.  I think we’re officially grownups now.”

Clarke laughed, joining him laying in the grass.  “So two kids and a house don’t make us grownups, but a dog does?” she clarified.

Murphy rolled his head towards her so she could see his grin.  “I don’t make the rules, Clarke.”

 

**1077 APF**

Their bedtime routine was just that—a routine.

Bedtime snack and story time.  Seph got to pick a story and Madi got to pick a story most nights, but they were reading through Alice in Wonderland right now.

After story time was teeth brushing and heading outside to pee.  And then usually the girls could talk them into one more story.  And then it was bedtime kisses and tucking in and then the girls went to sleep, Wolf Puppy curled up around them in bed.

Then the routine was a little flexible.  Sometimes they stayed up a little longer, maybe read their own books or drew on the couch, or they’d sit by the fire outside if it was warm enough.  Sometimes they were just so tired they went to bed themselves.

It had been the same routine for a while.

And now there were more bedtime kisses, between Clarke and Murphy.

Murphy didn’t really know how his impulsive kiss had turned them into a nightly routine, but, somehow, they had been.

Not that he was complaining.  He was definitely not complaining.  If anyone said he was complaining, they were lying.

He kissed her on the temple or the forehead or the top of her head, because he wasn’t sure he could keep it as platonic as she thought it was if he kissed her anywhere else, if he’d be able to stop himself at just one kiss.

Clarke’s placement of her kisses varied, but it was always wherever she could reach without moving once she was already settled into bed.  His chest.  His arm.  The side of his head.

The first time she kissed him on his jaw, her lips brushing softly against his skin so close to his own that their noses brushed together, he honestly wasn’t sure how he didn’t combust right then and there.

“Goodnight, John,” she whispered, still close enough to his face that he could feel her breath and _fuck_.

It took him a few minutes to answer, long enough that she definitely noticed, long enough that she was already curled back up against him.

“Night, Clarke.”  His own kiss went to the side of her head tonight, his heart still beating too fast.

Did he mention he was fucked?  Because he was very much fucked.

 

**1095 APF**

He’d been sitting out on the table for a while when Clarke joined him, and he glanced over at her with a small smile, accepting the mug of tea she offered.

“How’re you doing?” she asked, hopping up beside him.

He didn’t answer right away, their arms brushing as she shifted.  There were probably at least a half dozen layers between them, but even that touch made him want to move closer, to wrap her up in his arms.

Which was exactly the problem.

“Three years.”

Clarke bumped their arms together again, and he didn’t look over at her.  He couldn’t look over at her, not when he felt what he felt for her.  Not when it’d been three years to the day since he’d lost Emori.

“Three years,” Clarke repeated, and they sat there in silence a little while longer watching the sun start to peek over the trees across the lake.

“I miss her,” he said, once the sky was pink.  It wasn’t a lie.  He’d always miss Emori for the rest of his life.  “But it doesn’t hurt as much.”

Clarke squeezed his forearm.  “She’d want you to move on,” she told him.  “She’d want you to be happy.”

Murphy breathed in through his nose, her hand falling from his arm as he raised his mug to his lips.

He knew she was right.  Emori wouldn’t want him to spend his whole life mourning her, wallowing in the guilt that he couldn’t save her and their son.

She’d want him to be happy.

And he was.

But right now?

Right now, being in love with Clarke on the anniversary of Emori’s death made him feel like a piece of shit.

“I know,” he told Clarke after swallowing his tea.  “I just…I feel so guilty.”

“I don’t know how to help with that,” she said, not that Murphy had expected her to.  He knew she still had nightmares about the people she’d lost.  “But you shouldn’t have to feel guilty for living and feeling happy.”

He knew that, but it didn’t change anything.  He was moving on.  He was happy.  He’d have to work on the guilt.

The front door slammed open a few minutes later, saving him from having to answer, and then Madi was jumping onto his back and almost making him spill his tea down himself.

“Good morning!” she yelled, right in his ear.  “Can you make pancakes?”

“Can I make pancakes?” he asked, pushing a grin onto his face and standing up, a grin that turned more real with Madi’s squealing giggles as she wrapped her legs around his waste and clung to his neck.  “Can _you_ make pancakes?”

“Can I put bugs in them?”

“No.”  Murphy laughed, shifting his tea to one hand and holding out a hand to tug Clarke off the table.

She kept looking at him though, as Madi tried to distract them so they wouldn’t notice Seph dropping pieces of pancakes to Wolf Puppy.

“I’m okay,” he told her, and it was barely even a lie.  He still felt guilty as shit, sitting here with Clarke and their kids and their dog in their house.  He thought he might always feel guilty, that he was alive and Emori wasn’t, that she was dead and he was happy.  He felt guilty, but he was okay.

He was okay.

 

**1112 APF**

_“Hi, Daddy!  Love you!”_

Bellamy dropped his spoon back in his bowl, turning a grin on the speakers, like his daughter would be able to see him.

_“I gots lots of dots now, Daddy!”_

There was laughter in the background, both on the radio and in the kitchen.

“Dots?” Raven questioned, and Bellamy shrugged.

_“Do you remember what they’re called?”_ Murphy asked, and Bellamy ignored the twist in his gut that came whenever he heard the other man.  _“No?  Are they called freckles?”_

_“Yep!”_ Seph confirmed, giggling.  _“Freckle-eckle-eckle-eckle!”_

_“You know who else has lots of freckles?”_

_“Daddy!”_

_“Yeah,”_ Murphy agreed. _“Your daddy has lots of freckles, just like you!  And he’s got your curly hair.”_

_“Ponies?”_

Murphy laughed.  _“No, his is shorter than yours,”_ he said.  _“He doesn’t wear it in ponies.”_

_“Oh.”_   There was a pause.  _“Mommy’s eyes.”_

_“Yeah, you got your mommy’s eyes.”_

Bellamy was grinning so widely he probably looked like an idiot, but he couldn’t help it.  He could picture Seph, his daughter, looking so much like him but with Clarke’s eyes and longer hair.  The picture he had of her in his mind wasn’t right, wasn’t what she actually looked like, he knew, but he wished so much that he could see her.

Seph was still talking, telling him about a stick she’d found or maybe a dream she had, he wasn’t sure, but he let the sound of her voice wash over him, basking in the light of his daughter.

He loved her, even though he hadn’t actually met her.  He’d loved her from the moment he found out about her, loved her more than anything.

And in less than two years, he’d finally get to meet her.

_“Gotta go!”_ Seph said, and he tuned back into her actual words.

_“Gotta go?  Where’re you going?”_

_“Help Madi find snakes!”_

Murphy laughed.  _“Oh!  That’s super important.  You wouldn’t want to miss that.”_

_“Nope!  Gotta go!”_

_“Say bye-bye to your dad first.”_

_“Bye-bye, Daddy!  Love you!”_

There was some scuffling in the back of the call, presumably Seph running off, and Bellamy turned back to his algae, still grinning.  Maybe he wasn’t completely happy that his daughter was playing with snakes or that they had a wolf living in their house, but it wasn’t like Clarke or Murphy would let her get into any situation that could hurt her.  He trusted their judgement, and he wasn’t around yet.  He didn’t get a say when he wasn’t there.  And maybe he wasn’t exactly okay with that, but there wasn’t anything he could do about it.  He was dealing with it.

Murphy’s voice came back on the radio, soft and light.

_“She looks so much like you, Bellamy, and she’s such an amazing kid.  You’re gonna love her so much when you actually find out about her existence.”_

The radio clicked off then, and Bellamy’s hand tightened around his spoon.

As shocking as it was, sometimes Murphy made it really hard to keep hating him.

 

**1134 APF**

Madi pulled herself up onto the counter, swinging her legs and banging them against the wall behind her.  “Why are you putting the food in a box?”

Murphy glanced up from the box, losing track of his mental list of what he’d already packed and what he still needed to.

“We’re having a picnic,” he told her.  “Where’s your sister?”

Madi shrugged, kicking her legs again with another loud bang.  “She’s in our room, I think,” she said.  “With Wolf Puppy.  Why’re we having a picnic?”

Murphy took a moment to answer, because _I’m trying to make your mom fall in love with me_ wasn’t exactly something to tell your eight year old who couldn’t keep a secret.

“Because it’ll be fun,” he told her instead, piling the rest of the picnic stuff into the box.  “Go get your sister.”

“Seph!” Madi yelled, not moving from her seat until Wolf Puppy came barrelling into the room.  She hopped to the ground to squeeze the wolf’s face, rubbing her own up against it.  Their dog had been growing ridiculously fast and was already the size of Seph.  “Can we bring Wolf Puppy?”

Murphy considered it a moment before shaking his head.  “She’ll eat all the food,” he told her, and ignored Madi’s whines.  “Seph, are you coming?”

His other daughter finally emerged, dressed in about six sweaters—half of which he was pretty sure weren’t actually hers to begin with and all of which were far too warm for the weather outside.

“Come on, kid,” he said, urging her and Madi towards the door, Wolf Puppy whining at their feet.

“Please can we bring her,” Madi pleaded, bracing her arms and legs against the doorframe.  “She’ll miss us.”

“No.”  His daughters stared at her, Seph joining Madi, their eyes wide and pleading.  He sighed.  “Fine.  But we’re tying her up until the food’s gone.”

The girls cheered, and Madi ran back into the house to get Wolf Puppy’s rope, and then they were heading off.

“Where are we picnicking?” Madi asked.

Murphy adjusted his hold on the box of picnic supplies.  “I was thinking the field.  There’s lots of flowers there right now.”

Madi hopped from foot to foot.  “But Mommy’s hunting,” she pointed out.  “What if she comes back all bloody and wants to wash?”

Murphy paused, glancing down at the kid.  “Right,” he agreed.  “Let’s set up by the lake, then.”

By the time Clarke got back from hunting, the picnic was set up and Wolf Puppy was complaining about being tied to a tree.

“Are we having a picnic?” she asked, dropping down on the blanket beside them and snagging a piece of meat.  “What’s the occasion?”

“Papa says it’s for fun,” Madi said, tossing a berry at Seph’s open mouth and hitting her in the forehead.  “He also says Wolf Puppy has to be tied up until we’re done the food.”

“That is a great plan,” Clarke said, turning to give him a smile.

Murphy grinned back, handing her an apple slice.  She accepted it, cheersed it against his own slice.

It was nice, sitting here by the lake with Clarke and their kids.  The sun was shining and Clarke had a few flecks of blood in her hair but was smiling and laughing and looking so gorgeous.  It wasn’t a date, because if or when Clarke ever went on a date with him, he’d make sure she actually agreed to going on the date in the first place and they probably wouldn’t bring the kids.

But it almost felt like one.

And then Madi grinned widely, picking up the plate of meat and throwing it like a frisbee into the lake.

“Vive la Wolf Puppy!” she yelled, and Murphy instantly regretted letting her read Les Mis.

“Vee Wolf Puppy!” Seph echoed, and then the girls were tossing the whole picnic into the lake, so fast that it was all gone before he or Clarke could even react.

“What are you doing?” Clarke finally asked.

Madi ran past them to the tree, undoing the knots holding Wolf Puppy in place.

“Wolf Puppy was wrongly imprisoned,” she told them.  “We’re setting her free!  Vive la Wolf Puppy!”

The wolf ran straight for the lake once she was released, presumably headed for the carefully planned picnic that now resided within it, and the girls were running after her, tearing off their clothes and then diving into the water.

Murphy glanced over at Clarke, both of them bursting into laughter as they caught each other’s eyes.

“Well,” Clarke said, reaching down to undo her boots.  “If you can’t beat them, join them.”

Murphy snorted and tugged his shirt over his head.  Maybe it wasn’t going to be a romantic picnic.  Maybe he’d spent the morning preparing food only for it to be thrown into the lake and eaten by their dog.  Maybe none of this was what he’d planned.

But the sun was still shining and Clarke was still gorgeous and his kids were splashing around in the lake and, well, there was really only one thing he could say.

“Vive la Wolf Puppy!”

 

**1218 APF**

Harper had been feeling off.  She’d been feeling off for a while, a few weeks, but today it was worse.  She felt like she had a hangover, mostly.  Vertigo and nausea and a headache like a bitch.  Actually, her whole body hurt.  Her boobs in particular, which was weird.

She felt off, which was bad.  They’d been lucky so far.  Somehow they’d made it over three years with nothing more than a few minor colds.  They didn’t have a doctor.  Didn’t even have an ex-med student.  If something major happened, they were screwed.

Which was why she hadn’t told anyone she wasn’t feeling quite right, not even Monty.

She picked at her algae, even the thought of putting it in her mouth turning her stomach.

Raven and Echo were bickering about something, but it’d long since drifted into background noise.

There were a lot of things that weren’t quite adding up.  The symptoms, for starters.  But there was also the fact that a diet of algae wasn’t a fattening diet.  They’d all slimmed down a lot since they’d been on Earth, losing the muscle mass they’d gained and a lot of the extra fat.

But Harper, somehow, despite barely being able to stomach her algae for the last few weeks, seemed to have been putting some of it back on.

It didn’t make sense.

“Right, Harper?”

Harper startled, blinking at the others.  “What?”

“I said we wanted a spring wedding,” Monty repeated, his forehead creasing as he watched her.  “Because of the flowers.”

“Oh, yeah,” Harper agreed, nodding quickly.  “Sorry.  I just kind of zoned out.”

Monty pressed a kiss against her temple, and then started laying out the plans they’d made for their wedding.  Flowers and sunshine and

And then she felt it.

It was soft at first, something she was pretty sure she only noticed because of how strange it was.  She wasn’t sure what it was, though, and in the minutes after it happened she started to wonder whether she’d imagined it.

And then it happened again.  And again.

And then a message from Clarke from so long ago pushed itself to the front of her mind.

_She won’t stop kicking.  It’s the strangest feeling, Bellamy.  It feels almost like something’s tapping me from the inside.  I don’t know.  I can’t describe it._

Was she…?  It’d make sense.  All the symptoms she had and now this?

It happened again, and she gasped, one hand going to her stomach and the other to her mouth as the others turned to stare at her.

“Monty,” she said, pushing to her feet, her cheeks feeling like they were going to break from the grin that was suddenly on her face.  “Monty, come with me.”

She ignored the wolf whistles and Raven’s call of, “All this wedding talk got you horny?” as she grabbed her fiancé’s hand, tugging him from the room.

They were down the hall a bit when they stopped, just far enough for privacy.

“What is it?” Monty asked, brushing a hand over her face.

Harper grinned at him, reaching up to cup his hand with hers, dragging it down to her stomach.  She could tell he felt it right away by the way his brows drew together.

“What is—?”  His face slackened as he put the pieces together, and Harper felt her grin grow.  “That’s—”

“A baby,” she finished, squeezing his hand.  It was still kicking, and it felt so fucking weird, having something tiny and living growing inside her, but it was there and it was theirs and she loved it already.  “We’re having a baby.”

Monty’s own grin spread slowly, lighting up his face.  His free hand, the one that wasn’t still pressed against her stomach, came up to cup her cheek, and he leaned down to kiss her.

She kissed him back, not sure if the wetness on her cheeks was her own tears or his.  They pulled back a minute later, foreheads pressed together, and Monty laughed lightly.

“We’re having a baby,” he whispered, and she closed the distance between their lips once more.

“We’re having a baby.” 

* * *

  _Can't you see that I'm the one who understands you?_  
_Been here all along so why can't you see_  
_You belong with me_  
_Standing by and waiting at your back door_  
_All this time how could you not know, baby?  
_ _You belong with me_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What is this? Is baby!Jordan gonna make an appearance 125 years early?
> 
> We missed Madi's birthday in this chapter, so she's 8 now btw.
> 
> Just a reminder that the next chapter will either be coming by July 6th when I leave on vacation or not for like two weeks after that. All depends on whether I can finish writing it before I leave.
> 
> Comments and kudos give me life!
> 
> Come find me on Tumblr at probably-voldemort!


	15. can't cut it from out these veins

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First things first, I'm gonna repost this bit I had at the beginning of a few chapters ago:
> 
> I got some comments about tags after the last chapter. I won't be removing the Bellarke tag because Bellarke is a big part of this fic. If you expected more like non-radio call content between Clarke and Bellamy, I'm sorry to disappoint at the moment. But considering it's a 40 chapter fic with a description that says that Clarke and Murphy are on the ground together during Praimfaya, I feel like it should come without saying that Bellamy and Clarke are going to be separated for a while??? And if it doesn't, let me tell you now that Bellamy and Clarke are gonna be separated for a while. Like a long while. We're like a quarter of the way through this fic, guys. Spacekru isn't coming down anytime soon. If this isn't what you expected when you started this fic, I'm sorry, but that's the way it is and I won't be offended if you decide to stop reading. I won't be untagging Bellarke because they're a big part of the story, and I don't see anyone coming after me for having Memori tagged when Emori literally dies in the first chapter.
> 
> Second of all, this is mostly a filler chapter. There's really only one plot point that happens in this chapter, so I thought maybe I could just leave the whole thing out but then I was like mmm maybe I should give it to you anyway. There's absolutely nothing substantial that happens in this chapter at all, though, so please be forewarned.
> 
> I wanted to get this chapter up before I left on vacation, so it's shorter than a lot of the more recent chapters have been. There'll be more scenes and stuff in the next few chapters, don't worry, this one is just short so you could get it sooner.
> 
> Just restating from the last chapter that I am currently en route to vacation! I have exactly nothing written for the next chapter, so it probably won't be coming for at least a week or two after I get back. I'll try to be as fast as possible writing it, but no promises that I'll actually have a ton of time right off to bat.
> 
> Song for this chapter is One Republic's Let's Hurt Tonight.
> 
> And now I'm not going to bore you with anything else so please enjoy!

_When, when we came home_  
_Worn to the bones_  
_I told myself, "This could get rough"_

* * *

 

**1218 APF**

Monty couldn’t stop grinning.

He was going to be a dad.

He and Harper were having a baby.

Maybe the timing wasn’t great, since they were still on the Ark and not back on the ground yet, but he was still so fucking excited.

He knew the others had noticed that he and Harper had been acting weird.  There was no way they wouldn’t be able to.  But considering everyone had thought they’d snuck off to have sex, he was pretty sure they’d put it down to the fact that they were the only ones getting laid regularly.

But whatever.  He was happy and he was kind of terrified that they’d be doing this in space with no doctors, but they’d get through this.  They could do it.

And then they’d have a baby.

A baby.

Their baby.

“Okay,” Raven finally said, dropping her spoon into her bowl after dinner.  “Either you two had some really good sex or you’ve been hiding a fuck ton of moonshine, but something is up with you.”

Harper snorted, the grin she’d been wearing all day still lighting up her face.  “I mean, you’re kinda right,” she said.  “It is technically due to sex.”

Bellamy shook his head, holding up his hands.  “I don’t think we need anymore details than that.”

Monty glanced at Harper, who shrugged.  “I think you actually need a few more details,” he laughed.

The others looked at them like they were crazy, like whatever detail of their sex lives this was, they didn’t want to know it, and Harper broke down into giggles.

“How far along was Clarke when she felt the baby kick?” she asked, once the giggling was under control enough.

“That was a topic change,” Echo commented, raising an eyebrow.  “Probably around twenty, twenty five weeks, though.  Why?”

Monty shrugged.  “It wasn’t that much of a topic change.”

It took them a few moments for the dots to connect, long enough that Harper had grabbed his hand under the table, dragging it to her belly where their kid was kicking again.

“Oh my god!”  Raven got it first, her hand coming up to her mouth.  “You’re—?”

“We’re having a baby!” Harper yelled, throwing her arms in the air.

There were hugs, so many hugs, so many that Monty was pretty sure he hugged everyone at least twice, and then they were sitting down again, Echo dealing out cards for “the space game”, so he wasn’t entirely sure what they were actually playing.

“You do realize,” Raven said slowly, a few moments later, “that we don’t have a doctor or anything, right?”

Monty just nodded, because he had thought that, too many times in the hours since Harper had told him about the baby, but Harper shrugged.

“We’ll figure it out,” she said, sounding a lot more confident in that than Monty felt.  Did she not remember when they listened to Clarke giving birth?  Seph hadn’t cried right away, which Monty was pretty sure meant she hadn’t been breathing.  None of them had been to med school.  Monty had no idea what Murphy had done to get Seph to cry.

“And Bellamy was there when Octavia was born,” Harper added.

Bellamy shifted, moving his cards to his other hand, and shrugged.  “I mean, yeah, but I was like five,” he pointed out.  “That was a long time ago.  I remember there was a lot of yelling and a lot of blood and then there was a baby.  That’s about it.  I don’t want you thinking I’m an expert on this or anything.”

Monty sucked in a breath, looking back down at his own cards.  Bellamy had been his hope too, even if he hadn’t realized he’d been hoping for that.  He had the most experience with babies, even if it had been over twenty years ago.  Monty couldn’t remember ever actually seeing a real one before.  He was sure he had at some point back on the Ark, since there had definitely been babies on the Ark, but he honestly had no idea.

The fact that Bellamy’s memories of his mom giving birth amounted to basically nothing was honestly kind of terrifying.

Echo threw some cards on the table, even though the part of Monty’s brain that wasn’t freaking out was pretty sure she still hadn’t actually told them what game they were playing.

“I have six sisters,” she said.  “Not that anyone asked.”

They turned to look at her.

“What?” Monty asked.

Echo shrugged, sorting her cards in her hands.  “I have six sisters,” she repeated.  “Between them, I have nineteen nieces and nephews.  I was in the room when thirteen of them were born.”  She looked up, offering them a smile, and reached over to squeeze Harper’s hand.  “I haven’t physically been the one to deliver their babies, but I’ve been in the room.  I’ve held their hands.  I’ve listened.  Between whatever information Clarke and Murphy gave us when Clarke was pregnant and what I know, we’ll get you and your baby through this, okay?  I promise.”

It was a little weird, if Monty was being honest, that it was Echo who was giving him hope that they could actually do this, that they could get Harper and the baby through this alive, but he was going to take it.

“Okay,” Harper agreed, smiling back at Echo and then at Monty.  “Okay, that’s great.”

Raven tossed her cards on the table, throwing her arms in the air.  “We’re having a fucking baby!”

 

**1225 APF**

“Alright, are you ready?” Murphy asked, squatting slightly to brace himself.

“Yeah,” Madi echoed from his shoulders, her fingers digging into his hair.  “Are you ready to die?”

Murphy froze, frowning and glancing up at her.  “What did you just say?”

Madi shrugged.  “I asked if they were ready for pie,” she said, and Murphy made the executive decision that dodging Clarke and Seph’s sudden lunge was more important than reprimanding his daughter for threatening her mom and her sister.

“We didn’t say go,” he complained, turning awkwardly in the waist high water.

“Who said you’re calling the shots?” Clarke asked, steading herself and Seph.

Water chicken wasn’t exactly the most fun game, but it was hot as balls and throwing each other in the lake was definitely a great solution to their heat problem.

Madi tugged on his hair once more and then released it, and Murphy took that as his cue to charge Clarke and Seph.  Madi launched herself from his shoulders as they neared, colliding with Clarke and Seph and sending the three of them tumbling into the water.

“We win!” Madi yelled when she resurfaced, and then she was urging Seph away to race to a rock.

“I’m pretty sure that’s cheating,” Clarke laughed.  “And I’m pretty sure you still lost since Madi fell off.”

“It’s not falling if you jump,” Murphy pointed out, smirking at her as he held out a hand to tug her back to her feet.

His foot slipped on a mossy rock as he pulled her hand, and they both went tumbling back into the water.

He caught her in his arms on instinct as they rose to the surface, and brushed her wet hair from her eyes with one hand.  He felt her breath stutter, her mouth open slightly as she stared at him.

He stared back, so many things he wanted to say on the tip of his tongue, their faces so close that he would barely have to lean in to close the distance between them.  Her eyes might’ve dipped to his lips, and he knew his had strayed more than a few times.

He could do it, so easily.  He could kiss her and throw everything out there.

And then Madi sent a tidal wave of water flooding over them, cackling loudly, and the moment was gone.

“Madi!” Clarke yelled, diving away to chase their daughter, and Murphy sighed, flipping over so he could float on his back.

That was the worst part of all this.  He could deal with being hopelessly in love with Clarke.  It wasn’t ideal, but he could deal with it.  He could handle loving her without any chance of her loving him back in the same way.

But then there were moments like this, where she’d look at him a certain way, or where she’d say something, the tone of her voice just so, and his resolve to do nothing would waver.

Because the look in her eyes would be the same one he couldn’t quite figure out how to conceal from his own, or her voice seemed to say something more, and he’d find himself thinking that maybe, just maybe, she felt the same way.

That was the worst part, because, even if she was anywhere near as in love with him as he was with her, it didn’t matter.  It didn’t matter, because no matter how much Clarke might love him, she loved Bellamy more.  She’d wait a thousand years for him to come back to her, if that was what it took.  As long as Bellamy was coming back, Murphy didn’t stand a chance.

And when Bellamy was back, everything would be different.  Clarke would have the man she actually wanted to be with.  Seph would have her real dad.  Aside from Madi, his family wouldn’t need him anymore.  He didn’t know what he was going to then, and he tried not to think about it.

He also tried not to think of the other possibility, the one that made his heart catch in his throat with the hope it brought.  The possibility that Bellamy would come back, and Clarke would realize she wasn’t as in love with him as she had been, once upon a time, that five years apart changed things.  The possibility that as much as five years apart dimmed Clarke’s love for Bellamy, five years together would ignite a flame in her for Murphy, one she couldn’t acknowledge until she found closure with Bellamy.

He didn’t let himself think about that.  It wasn’t fair to his heart, to the parts of him that still hoped even when he told himself not to.  Why would Clarke choose him over Bellamy, if there even was a choice?  Bellamy was the father of her daughter.  She’d loved him for so long it was one of the only constants left.  The sun would always rise, the world wouldn’t stop trying to end, Seph would keep eating dirt, and Clarke and Bellamy would be in love.

He didn’t have a chance, so it was stupid, really, to be in love with her.  There was no point, not when there was no way anything would ever happen.

But feelings were dumb and didn’t make sense.  He was in love with her, even though it would only end with his heart broken.  There was nothing he could do to change that short of pulling away from her, from their whole family, and there was no way he could do that.  Not that that wouldn’t break his heart, too.

“Papa, throw me!” Seph yelled, and Murphy flipped back up, grinning at his daughter as he swam her way.

It was better like this, he told himself for the millionth time.  It was better to keep their family like it was, to not risk anything by trying to change things between him and Clarke.

So he could swim with his family and throw his toddler across the lake and pretend he wasn’t in love with her mom.

 

**1238 APF**

Raven tapped on her tablet, the Dance Dance screen disappearing and being replaced with an all too familiar score card.

“So I think the parents should get the first bets,” she said, gesturing at Harper and Monty.  “We’ve projected the due date to be, what?  Day 1320 to 1360, approximately?”

“Actually,” Echo said, stretching out her legs in her seat.  “I think the reigning champion should get first bets.”

Harper rolled her eyes.  “You are not reigning champion,” she said.  “None of us guessed Seph’s birthday.”

“But I guessed she’d be a girl,” Echo pointed out.  “And I guessed her weight and length.  Three out of four makes me the winner.  So I should get to go first, since I never actually got a prize for that.”

“She’s got a point,” Monty said, and heads turned his way.  “Not about her going first.  Me and Harper are definitely going first.  But there should really be a prize or something.”

Raven sighed, dropping back into a seat.  “Fine,” she agreed.  “Prizes are great.  But we don’t have any prizes on this space station.”

“Oh, I know!” Echo said, straightening up.  “Winner gets to name the kid.”

Harper and Monty spoke at the same time.  “No.”

“Winner gets exclusive name suggestion?” Bellamy suggested, and Raven rolled her eyes.

“Says the guy whose daughter’s first name is Doctor.”

Bellamy rolled his own eyes.  “I didn’t name her,” he pointed out.  “And it’s Doctor-Persephone, Raven.  There’s a hyphen.”

“Winner gets to help pick a name,” Harper said, nodding in agreement.  “Me and Monty get to veto, and it’ll be pretty hard to beat the names we already have picked out, but you can try.”

“That’s not a prize,” Echo complained.  “That’s barely anything.”

“What about godparents?” Monty suggested, looking at Harper.  “Winner could be the godparent?”

“That could work,” she agreed.  “But what if one of us win?”

“Then obviously they have to babysit whenever we want without complaint,” Monty said, and Harper laughed.

“Alright,” Raven said, standing back up and brandishing her tablet.  “Are we ready to make bets?”

“As the person going through morning sickness, I think I get first bets,” Harper said, and no one argued.  “I’m gonna go with day 1325 and I’m feeling like it’s a boy.”

“What about weight and length?” Bellamy asked, and Harper shook her head.

“We don’t have a scale,” she pointed out.  “I don’t think we have a tape measure, either.”

“We don’t,” Raven confirmed, the last of Harper’s bets going on the board.  “Monty?”

“Day 1362,” Monty said, and Harper groaned.  “I’m just covering our bases, babe.  We’re good if it’s early or late now.  And I’m pretty sure it’s gonna be a girl.”

“Reigning champion is next,” Echo said.  “A girl and 1337.”

“Day 1344,” Bellamy said, leaning back in his seat.  “And a boy.”

Raven added her own bets of day 1353 and a boy, then saved the document.

“Alright,” she said.  “May the best woman win.”

 

**1244 APF**

 “Here.”

Clarke startled at the huge bushel of flowers that were thrust into her face, pulling back far enough to peer around them at the man holding them.

“These are gorgeous,” she said, accepting the bouquet and brushing her fingers over the petals.  They really were.  The flowers were a deep purple colour, ones she hadn’t seen before.  “What’re they for?”

Murphy might’ve blushed, but it was probably just a sunburn.  “Do I need an excuse to give pretty flowers to a pretty girl?” he asked, and Clarke rolled her eyes.

“I see, Mommy?”

“Of course.”  Clarke knelt down so Seph could see, and then her daughter was rubbing her face in the flowers, Madi joining in as soon as she ran across the yard.  Clarke glanced back up at Murphy, shielding her eyes against the sun.  “Really though.  What’s the occasion?”

Murphy huffed, crossed his arms over his chest, and glanced away.  “I already told you.”

Clarke rolled her eyes again.  “Fine,” she said, the words muffled as Madi shoved the bouquet into her face.  “Don’t tell me.”

The itching started with Murphy’s hands about half an hour later, spreading up his arms.

And then Clarke’s hands started, bright red and on fire.

And then the hives appeared on the girls’ faces, Clarke’s not long after.

“I can’t believe you gave me fucking poison ivy,” Clarke said, and then dunked her head back under the cold water of the lake.

“It’s not poison ivy,” Murphy countered, so fucking lucky he’d only touched them with his hands and not his entire face.  “I know what poison ivy looks like.”

Clarke huffed, tugging Madi out from under the water before she could accidentally drown herself.  “Well, it’s poison something.”

“I didn’t know,” Murphy insisted, hands fidgeting under the water as he tried not to scratch his arms.  “They were just pretty.  I’m sorry.”

Clarke just scowled at him, dunking back under the water before the burning could get too bad again.  She didn’t really think he’d done it on purpose.  It was obviously an accident.  Neither of them had known what the flowers even were, let alone whether they would make them itch this badly.

She wouldn’t’ve put it past the Murphy of the Dropship days to purposefully make everyone react from some plant.  But Murphy now?  There was no way he’d do anything if he’d known it’d hurt her or the girls.

She popped back to the surface, glancing over to where the flowers still sat in their vase on the table.

It’d been a sweet gesture.  It wasn’t Murphy’s fault they’d reacted to the flowers.

And they really were rather pretty.

 

**1253 APF**

“It doesn’t make sense.”

Monty had been saying that over and over since he’d found it and, honestly, Bellamy believed him.  There really wasn’t any explanation for how the weed plant had survived in the wall of the Ark all this time.

But, really, who was he to question what was apparently magic space weed?

“Are we celebrating?” Echo asked, rolling a leaf between her fingers.  “On Earth, there’s a tradition of smoking cigars to celebrate a baby.”

“You still have cigars?” Bellamy asked, which probably wasn’t the most important question.

Echo just shrugged, and then Bellamy found himself hauled up with the two of them in the Dance Dance room passing a blunt between them.

Raven and Harper were doing something, Bellamy wasn’t entirely sure what but it was something to get ready for the baby.

“To Monty,” Echo said, brandishing the blunt.  She took a puff and then passed it to Bellamy, who echoed the toast.

The door might’ve opened at some point, but Bellamy was too fuzzy to notice and, really, he was pretty sure he was floating so he might’ve imagined the door.

He didn’t imagine the radio crackling to life after that, though.

“That’s gonna be Clarke,” he told Monty and Echo, grinning widely.  “I love Clarke.”

_“What the fuck, Monty?”_

It wasn’t Clarke.

“Oh, shit,” Monty said, dropping the blunt on the floor, his eyes wide.

Echo cackled.  “You’re in trouble,” she teased, leaning over and bumping Monty’s arm with hers.

_“I don’t even know where the fuck you got weed from, but that’s not even the point.  I’m pregnant, Monty.  With your kid.  Remember that?  You could’ve at least saved the weed until I could fucking smoke it with you.  None of you are leaving that room until the smoke is gone, got it?  And I’m running away with Raven, because she’s the only one who loves me.”_

Echo was still laughing, and Bellamy joined in.

“Your fiancée is pissed,” he told Monty, grinning at him.  “She’s gonna kill you.”

“Do you think she’s really gonna leave me?” Monty asked, a frown creasing his forehead.  “I don’t want her to leave me.”

“Raven and Harper would make really cute babies,” Echo mused.  “Like, way cute.  And they’d be cute together.”

“If Harper leaves you, you can be with me and Clarke,” Bellamy offered.  “We have a kid, too.  She’s really cute.”

“You haven’t seen her,” Echo pointed out, and Bellamy shushed her, pushing his entire hand over her face.

“She’s cute,” he insisted, turning back to Monty.  “You can share her with us.  She’s already got three parents.  Four is a good number, too.  And I like to cuddle, so we can probably cuddle lots.”

“Thanks, man,” Monty said, leaning over to lay his head on Bellamy’s shoulder.  He took another puff of the joint.  “I’m gonna pick Harper over you, though.”

“Okay,” Bellamy agreed, patting him on the head.

 

**1260 APF**

It was really quiet, which was both weird and a little concerning.  Clarke really couldn’t remember the last time there had been complete quiet while the sun was still up.

The girls had been begging to go camping on their own for weeks, after someone in a book had gone camping and they’d found out about the concept.  Clarke and Murphy could not see the appeal—why would you willingly choose to live like you’d been sent down in a dropship to die when you had other options?—but Madi especially had been sold on the idea immediately, and whatever Madi wanted to do, Seph wanted to do.

It took a few late night discussions and psyching each other up before Clarke and Murphy were able to believe fairly solidly that the Grounder had been a one time thing, that the girls would be safe on their own with a radio, before they finally agreed.

And now they were set up in a little clearing a half hour or so walk from home, and Clarke wondered how the day could be so quiet.

“What did we even do before kids?” she wondered aloud, lounging on the grass to dry off after an evening swim.  It wasn’t like the girls were with them twenty four seven, but they didn’t really have more than an hour or two to themselves that often.  Even Wolf Puppy had been invited on the camping trip, so they didn’t even have the dogs.

Murphy snorted next to her.  “I have no idea.”  He paused, sitting up.  “Actually, I do have an idea.  I’ll be right back.”

Clarke watched him walk away because she wanted to know what his idea was.  It definitely didn’t have anything to do with the water droplets that were still running down his bare back.

When he returned, he was wearing a shirt and carrying a bottle.

“Probably better than Monty’s moonshine,” he said, tossing the bottle her way as he sunk back onto the grass.  Clarke turned the bottle over in her hand, the faded label advertising it as tequila.  “I found it in the pantry at the lab.  You were pregnant and then breastfeeding and then by the time we could get drunk, I’d forgot about.”

Clarke laughed, screwing the top off the bottle.  “I don’t even remember the last time I drank,” she said.  “We’re probably both lightweights now.”

“Speak for yourself.”  Murphy grabbed the bottle from her hands, taking a long sip before pulling it away and coughing.  “So this isn’t actually any better than moonshine.”

Clarke took the bottle back, taking a sip and grimacing at the burn.  “So what’s the rest of the plan?” she asked, handing it back for Murphy’s turn.  The sun was starting to set over the trees, and she had been contemplating turning in early and actually getting a full night’s sleep until Murphy had brought out the tequila.

Murphy stared at her for a moment, long enough for her to take her next sip from the bottle, before a smirk stretched across his face.

“Never have I ever fucked Bellamy Blake.”

Clarke rolled her eyes, taking another sip from the bottle.  The tequila was already easy to drink, which probably meant she was just as much of a lightweight now as she’d guessed.

“We’re playing like that, huh?” she asked, handing him back the tequila.  “Never have I ever given someone hives from giving them flowers.

“I already apologized,” he grumbled, taking the shot.

They went back and forth, first with pointed jabs at each other and then less and less specific as they ran out of ideas.

“Never have I ever…” Clarke paused, staring at Murphy in the last light from the mostly set sun as she tried to think of something she hadn’t done.  “Oh!  I know!  Never have I ever had a threesome.”

It was a dumb one, because Murphy had never dated anyone besides Emori and Monty and, from what she remembered from growing up with him, had absolutely no game ever, but she was out of ideas.  She was already raising the half-empty bottle to her own lips, ready to drink for being wrong, when Murphy took it from her.

“What?” he asked, after taking a long drag.  “You missed out being in solitary, Clarke.  The Skybox was a wild place.”

She laughed, a full body cackle that made her topple over into him, her face pressed up against his chest.  One of his arms wrapped around her, rubbing up and down her back, and he laughed too.

Clarke’s laughter stopped, and she snagged the bottle from him, taking another long sip before curling back into him.  This was really nice.  Her head was more than a little fuzzy and she couldn’t really feel her feet, but Murphy was warm and cozy and she really liked how it felt to have his arms wrapped around her.

“Never have I ever,” Murphy started, but stopped as she nuzzled further into his neck.

If Clarke had been more invested in the game, she would’ve pointed out that he wasn’t allowed to skip his turn or he’d have to drink.  But she wasn’t all that invested and, really, they could share the tequila easier like this, cuddled up close, so she just snuggled even closer, gazing up at him.

“Your eyes are really sparkly,” she told him when she found he was already looking at her.

Murphy’s face flushed red, and he turned away.  “No, they aren’t.”

“Yes, they are,” Clarke insisted.  She didn’t move her face away, only reached up to tilt his back towards her.  “Very sparkly.”

He didn’t say anything, and Clarke just curled back into him, a grin stretching across her face.

Drunk Murphy couldn’t take a compliment.  That was definitely an interesting development.

*********

When the sun was completely gone, it had gotten too chilly to sit by the water, so Murphy and Clarke had stumbled their way across the yard to stoke the fire.

They’d settled onto a log, sharing the rest of the tequila, and Clarke was snuggled so close into his side that she was practically in his lap.

The tequila was probably a bad idea.  If Murphy had been thinking, he’d probably have been thinking that.

But, as it was, Clarke was tucked up against him, rubbing her face against his neck, and he really couldn’t bring himself to regret getting as drunk as he was.

Because he was definitely drunk.  Because that was the only explanation for the way his face burned and his tongue stopped working every time Clarke pressed closer and whispered another compliment, her drunken speech slurred and giggly.

“Your face,” she said, her lips moving against his skin, and his arm tightened around her in preparation for whatever she was going to say.  “Your face is, like, really great.”

It was a terrible compliment, as far as compliments went, but his heart still raced and he had to tuck his face into her hair to try to hide his blush.

He was a mess. 

So he took another sip of the tequila.

Clarke suddenly gasped, jerking away from him.  “We’re not doing it right,” she said, shakily pushing herself to her feet and wobbling as she stood.  “I’ll be back.”

Murphy didn’t think to question what they were doing wrong.  His head was fuzzy and the world was spinning and Clarke’s ass as she walked away was too distracting.  Not that he only liked her ass.  He liked all of her.  But her ass was really nice, too.

She returned shortly with salt and a purple citrus fruit they’d found and eloquently named _purples_ , the purple cut into four relatively equal sized pieces, and dropped back onto the log next to him.

“They do it like this in the movies.”

Murphy didn’t question her as she grabbed his arm, but his heart did skip a beat when she licked a stripe from his wrist to his elbow.  And then she was shaking salt on it before repeating the process on her own arm.

“I think it goes salt, shot, purple,” she instructed, leaning forward to sloppily pour two more shots.  She handed one and a slice of purple to him, and then raised her own in the air.

“On three?” he asked, and she grinned at him, big and bright and fucking amazing.  “One, two, three!”

Licking salt off his arm was weird, and he still wasn’t entirely sure what the salt or the purple should’ve done to the tequila, but he’d stopped tasting it half a bottle ago.

“That was disappointing,” he said, and Clarke pouted at him.  He poked her lip and she giggled, moving to fill another shot.

 “They do this in the movies, too.”

She handed him the shot.  Murphy didn’t know what she was talking about and didn’t really care, because as soon as she’d finished speaking, she’d stuck her fingers in her mouth and that was all he could look at, all he could concentrate on.  And then she was pulling them out, dragging them down her neck, using her spit to stick the salt there.

And then he knew what she was talking about, and, _fuck_.

“What are you waiting for?” she asked, and his eyes darted up to hers before zeroing back in on her neck.

“I can’t reach,” he told her, because he knew there were reasons they shouldn’t be doing this, but he couldn’t remember what they are.

Clarke rolled her eyes and pushed to her feet, and Murphy cursed himself for messing his chance up in the few moments it took for her to move.  And then she was dropping onto his lap, straddling his legs.

“Better?” she asked, pulling her hair away from her neck.  His free hand wrapped around her, tugging her closer, probably too close, and his eyes were trained on the tilt of her lips.

“Better,” he agreed.

He took the shot, realizing as the tequila hit that this was the wrong order and deciding that it didn’t really matter.  He dropped the glass into the dirt, cupping her cheek as he leaned in.

He meant to just lick off the salt.  He really did.  But she was in his lap and his lips were on her and then he was kissing her skin, soft and hard and so many other contradictions.  He tasted the salt, tasted _her_ , and he couldn’t stop, couldn’t make himself pull back.

He kissed down the line of salt, soft presses of his lips and hard sucks, and Clarke’s first moan went straight to his bones.  Her hand dug into his hair, and, for one brief, terrifying moment, he thought she was going to pull him away.

But she didn’t.

She just gripped his hair and tilted her neck, giving him more access, and _fuck_ there was no way he could stop now.

By the time he finally managed to pull away, he was breathing heavily and she already had bruises starting to dot her skin.  He stared at them, something fluttering inside him at the sight, and leaned in to press a soft kiss there before moving away enough to see her face.

Clarke’s eyes were heavy, filled with something he hadn’t seen there before.  Her hand stayed in his hair, keeping him close, like there was any way in hell he was going anywhere.

“You stopped,” she said, a rasp in her voice that did things to him.

“Yeah,” he said, voice raw and low.  He swallowed heavily, his tongue darting out to wet his lips.  Clarke’s eyes followed the movement, and Murphy had to swallow again before he could speak.  “I got all the salt.”

“Right.” 

Clarke’s hand left his hair, her other holding up the slice of purple.  Murphy’s eyes stayed on hers as he leaned forward, as he took the slice in his teeth and sucked.

There were a million reasons why he shouldn’t do this.  A million good reasons.  It was a bad idea and there would be consequences.

But his brain was too full of tequila, too full of Clarke, and none of the reasons seemed like reasons anymore.  They seemed like excuses, fears of what could happen that kept him from doing what he wanted, what he was pretty sure Clarke wanted, too.

He finished the purple but didn’t pull back, didn’t put anymore distance between them.  Clarke’s eyes dropped from his, and he knew she wanted this too.

There were a million reasons why he shouldn’t.

But he wanted to.

And, right now, with the tequila and the marks on Clarke’s neck and the heat in her gaze, that was more than enough.

When he kissed her, she tasted like tequila and purple and salt and sunshine, and her hand dug back into his hair.  His wrapped around her, tugging her closer, and _fuck_ this was so much better than he’d imagined.

“Clarke,” he whispered against her, tugging her closer, closer, closer.

She hummed in response, their lips not parting as she shifted, her arms winding around his neck, down his chest, over his face.  His own hands went to her ass, tugging her closer still, because if they were doing this, if he was finally, finally going to get this part of Clarke, one of the only parts he hadn’t gotten, he wanted every part of it.

“Do you…?” He trailed off, distracted by her lips, her wandering hands, _her_.  “Do you want—?”

Clarke didn’t answer, her hands pushing under his shirt, pulling away from him just enough to tug it over his head, and _fuck_ that was answer enough.

“If we’re doing this,” he said between kisses, the words coming out in gasps as her hands and her lips wandered.  “If we’re doing this, I wanna do this right.”

She pulled back just enough to look at him, her eyebrows scrunched together in confusion.  The crease between them was adorable, cute enough to distract him into pressing his lips there, trailing them back her face to her own.

“Bed,” he finally clarified, and she grinned, tugging him back in for a deep kiss before detangling herself from him, standing up and lacing her fingers through his.

“Bed,” she agreed, and he grinned at her, lurching to his feet and almost sending them tumbling into the fire with the way the world was spinning.

*********

Clarke had thought about sleeping with Murphy more often than she’d admit while sober.  There were the dreams, of course, but there were other thoughts, like when they were wrapped up together in bed and his nose would drag along the back of her neck in his sleep, or when they were in the lake and he was shirtless and dripping, or when he was tired and his voice would dip lower.

She’d thought about it.  She was a twenty two year old woman who hadn’t had sex since she’d conceived her almost three year old daughter, and Murphy was an attractive man.  Obviously she’d thought about it.

But in all the times she’d thought about it, she’d never thought it would be like this.

When she’d thought about fucking Murphy, she’d thought about it as just that: fucking.  Fast and passionate and fucking.

She didn’t expect him to kiss her like it was the main event, slow and gentle and so fucking hot she didn’t know how he could keep the pace.

She didn’t expect that to continue, that his kisses would trail down and go on and on like he wanted to map out her body with his mouth.

She didn’t expect the way he looked at her, full of passion and want, yes, but also something more, something she couldn’t quite grasp.

She didn’t expect him to whisper her name like a prayer against her skin, sending goosebumps shooting across her body and making her dig her hands into his hair, guiding his mouth back up to hers.

 _Fuck_ , his mouth.  And his hands.  And his, well, _everything_.

Maybe it was the tequila.  Maybe it was her three and a half year dry spell.  Maybe it was just Murphy.

Whatever the reason was, it didn’t matter.  What mattered was her and Murphy and the whole night they had ahead of them.

The second time was more like she imagined, when they’d gone outside still naked to put out the fire and they’d fucked against the wall of the house.  It’d taken longer than planned to get the yard ready for bed, because Murphy couldn’t keep his hands off of her and she couldn’t keep her lips off of him.

When they finally ran out of energy, spent and exhausted and still riding a high, they were back in bed, a tangled pile of naked limbs.

“Goodnight, John,” she whispered, voice low and raw.  She pressed her bedtime kiss against his lips this time, brushing them with his tongue until he gave her entrance.

“Night, Clarke,” he whispered back, just as wrecked.  His bedtime kisses started at her lips then ran across her jaw, enough for probably a year’s worth of goodnights.

She giggled, not sure and not caring whether it was the tequila or Murphy making her feel so light, and snuggled up into him, her face tucked into his neck.

*********

Clarke fell asleep right away, but Murphy couldn’t.  The feel of her against him was too much, something he’d dreamed about for so long that his brain couldn’t fathom missing out on any of it for something like sleep.

So he lay there, tracing patterns over her skin with his fingers, nothing running though his mind but how happy he was and how much he loved her.

He had to pee after a while, and slowly extracted himself from Clarke and the bed.  She whined in her sleep, hands grabbing for him, and he really just wanted to crawl right back in there.

But he also really had to pee, so he pressed a kiss to her forehead and stumbled his way out of the house.

He spotted the radio on the outside table on his way back, just sitting there, and a possible problem slipped its way into his mind.  Before he knew what was happening, he was sitting down in front of it, the transmitter in his hands.

When he made it back to their room, Clarke was awake, sitting up in bed with the blanket around her waist.

“Where’d you go?” she asked, her voice rough from sleep and kissing and _fuck_ if that didn’t do something to him.

“I had to pee,” he told her, crawling back into bed, any sign of tiredness drifting away.  She immediately wrapped herself back around him, legs tangling together and faces only inches apart on the pillow.

“Okay.”

He leaned in to kiss her, and he was pretty sure he’d never get used to the feel of her lips against his.  “Sorry I woke you up,” he whispered, kissing her again, just because he could.  “Go back to sleep.”

She grinned at him, lopsided and still half-drunk, her eyes following his tongue as it darted across his lips.

“What if I don’t want to sleep?”

Well, fuck sleep then.  Murphy had exactly zero arguments if Clarke’s thoughts were going where he was almost certain they were going.  He was so down for anything.

But he could pretend he had game.

“That’s a shame,” he said, matching her grin with what he hoped was a smirk but was probably a dopey smile.  “There’s absolutely nothing else we could be doing in bed in the middle of the night besides sleeping.

“John.”  Clarke barely glanced away from his lips, her hand brushing up his neck and threading into his hair.

“What?”

She looked at his eyes then, her own dark and wanting enough that he considered abandoning any game plan that wasn’t just begging her to let him kiss her again.

“Shut up.”

He knew he was smirking then, because it was so perfect, such a fucking amazing opening.

“Make me.”

And, oh, did she ever make him.

*********

_“What’s up, alien cool kids?  I am having a fantastic night, thank you very much for asking.  I might be a little bit drunk, but that’s okay.  I’m probably not even drunk anymore.  It’s been, like, a hundred years since the last shot.  I’m basically the soberest person in the universe probably._

_“But, you smarty pants aliens and astronauts and fucking Pluto, too, if you’re listening, I have a teensy tiny little problem.  This would be a super good time to decide to answer and give some advice, okay?  Especially you, Raven.  You probably have a fuck ton of knowledge and answers and smart things and it would be really fucking nice if you could share them, okay?_

_“Okay.  I’m gonna tell you my problem, and you guys can just chime in whenever.  Sound good?  Good._

_“Bellamy.  Bella—Bell—Bell—Belly.  Can I call you Belly?  It’s like belly button, almost.  That’s so funny.  Why did your mom name you after a belly button?  Did you know that belly buttons are also called navels?  And that boats that fight are also called navels?  That doesn’t even make sense.  Do the boats fight in belly buttons?_

_“That doesn’t matter.  That’s not the problem.  Can I call you Belly?  Thanks, man._

_“Belly, buddy, man, dude, pal.  I think I broke something.  Not something that’s actually something.  Everything that’s something is very much not broken.  It’s all good.  Tip top._

_“I think I broke the bro code.  Maybe.  But the bro code is confusing and like what’s even on it?  Is there a list somewhere?  Was I supposed to get it when we became bros, Belly Buddy?  Did you forget to give me a list?  Did Clarke forget to give me a list?  Cause me and Clarke are bros too and she didn’t give me one, either._

_“If you were supposed to give me a list, this is on you, man._

_“Are we even bros?  We are bros, right?  I think we are.  Or, I think we were.  I don’t know if we still are, with the maybe broken bro code and all.  Also, me and Clarke are definitely more bros than me and you ever were.  We’ve been bros for, like, forever, and you and me were only bros for, what?  A year and a bit?  Me and Clarke are definitely more bros._

_“But, anyway, I think I broke the bro code with her.  It’s confusing, right?  Why does nobody tell you what the bro code is?_

_“Whatever._

_“I fucked up.  I did something, Belly Buddy Pal.  I did something, and I don’t regret it not even a little bit because it was amazing and fuck I love her.  But I also do regret it because it definitely changes stuff and I might’ve fucked up everything._

_“Our family, it’s good.  It works.  It works cause we respect the fucking bro code._

_“But I just stomped on the bro code, and now everything’s gonna be fucked up and I don’t know what to do._

_“I don’t want to lose her, Belly.  I love her.  I love her so fucking much.  I’m in love with Clarke, and now she’s probably gonna hate me and make me go live in a hole by myself and I’ll never see our girls again cause I fucked up.  I fucked with the bro code, Belly, and I don’t even regret it, like, at all._

_“I love her.  I love her face and her brain and her butt and her boobs and her heart and her intestines and her third metatarsal and her intercranial tissues and her retinas and her elbows and her—do you know what the skin on your elbows is called, Belly?  You’re gonna laugh.  Guess.  Guess.  It’s called a wenis.  Are you laughing?  Do you get it?  It’s funny cause it sounds like penis.  Abby said it’s not a technical name, though, but she’s a party pooper so we don’t listen to her._

_“But Clarke.  Clarke is amazing and I love her and tonight is amazing and I love it, but I also fucked everything up.  I don’t want everything to be fucked up.  I—fuck, I think I’m gonna pass out.  I’m so fucking tired._

_“You guys see my problem, right?  I’m gonna let you think on that, and I’m gonna go sleep, and in the morning, I expect some fucking answers, okay?  Let’s teamwork this, guys.  Seventy heads are better than six.  Is that the saying?  I think that’s the saying.  It sounds right._

_“Let’s do this guys.  Let’s get some solutions.  Solutions are our friends and our friends are solutions.  That’s why I called you, you funky little astronauts and aliens.  You’re my friends.  That means you’re solutions._

_“I love you guys.  Not like I love Clarke.  I love her so much.  Fuck, I’m going to bed._

_“Night, fuckers.”_

The radio clicked off, and Monty stared up at the ceiling in silence for a few minutes.  He heard the sound of a door opening down the hall, another one following a moment later, and then hushed voices.

Harper shifted beside him.  “Dish duty says Clarke and Murphy banged.”

“There is no way I’m taking that bet.”  Monty rolled over to face her, Harper mimicking him, her belly pushing them further apart than usual.  “That’s exactly what happened.  Dish duty says Bellamy’s in denial about it and has some weird ass explanation for that call.”

Harper narrowed her eyes.  “Dish duty says Clarke radios about it to freak out before we can find out what his theory it.”

Monty grinned at her, closing the distance between them to seal the bet with a kiss.  “You’re on.”

* * *

_So I'll hit the lights and you lock the doors_  
_Let's say all of the things that we couldn't before_  
_Won't walk away, won't roll my eyes_  
_They say love is pain, well darling let's hurt tonight_  
_If this love is pain, then honey let's love tonight_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry again for the complete lack of anything actually happening in this chapter.
> 
> The aliens who've been listening to the radio calls are confused about what the bro code is but they're pretty sure this is some sort of development.
> 
> Also sorry there's not a lot of Bellamy feelings going on in this chapter. Like I said at the beginning, I cut back on a bunch of filler/feelings scenes to get this up before I left, and I felt like focusing on Monty and Harper in the Spacekru scenes after they found out about the baby was more important than hashing out Bellamy's feelings some more in this chapter. There will defs be more Bellamy to come obviously but like that's just the reasoning behind there not being really any of that in this one.
> 
> I will see you all once I get back from vacation!
> 
> Come scream at or with me in the comments or on my tumblr at probably-voldemort!


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